Risk mitigation. Sounds fancy but all it means is “what are the most viable threats and what actions I can take to reduce the threats.” In this article, I am going to discuss risk mitigation strategies and provide practical examples of how this linear thought process can be used by the prepper in how they plan, provision, and train for WTSHTF. Risk mitigation differs from contingency planning by asking what can I do before a critical incident happens, versus what can I do after it happens.
A major aspect of continuity planning for large organizations (government, business, academia, health care, etc.) is examining potential threats, identifying vulnerabilities, and taking actions to reduce adverse results. Commonly known as risk mitigation, there are four general strategies
- Risk Acceptance: recognizing the risk as manageable
- Risk Avoidance: recognizing the risk as dangerous
- Risk Limitation: recognizing the risk is both manageable and dangerous
- Risk Transference: recognizing the risk is better assumed by other parties with proper skills or expertise.
In simplest terms, risk mitigation is the process of narrowing down what are the most likely threats to my safety and what information should I be focusing on, what should I be spending money on, and what skills do I need to obtain. With all that’s occurring right now in this crazy world, sometimes prepping is like drinking from a fire hose. Risk mitigation clarifies and illuminates and filters the real and imminent threats from the less real and more unlikely threats.
First Hand Experience
As a 27-year veteran of law enforcement, I often employed risk management in daily enforcement operations. If an investigation identified a business was involved in illegal activity, and probable cause existed for execution of a search warrant, prior to actual service of the warrant the person with tactical oversight undertook a process to identify risks and plan accordingly. For example, if the business were a chop shop for stolen cars with two aggressive Doberman pinchers guarding the building and fenced lot, the risk mitigation process would evaluate the level of danger and plan accordingly. In this example, the process would recognize the dogs present a clear risk of physical harm to officers executing the warrant, the result of no action could be officers getting bite, and the smartest course of action would be to have animal control officers present to control and contain the dogs at the beginning of the enforcement operation.
To parse this out a bit further, in this example, risk limitation identified the risk as both manageable and dangerous, and risk transference engaged the use of experts to reduce adverse outcomes.Continue reading“Risk Mitigation: Strategies for the Prepper, by Dan S.”
