Awareness: A Personal Safety Guide From a Retired Crime Prevention Officer

S. Gale Bleth is a personal safety expert and the author of A.W.A.R.E.: A Personal Safety Playbook for Leaving the Nest. She spent twenty-six years teaching self-defense, sixteen years in higher education at California State University East Bay, and sixteen years as a Crime Prevention Specialist with the Hayward Police Department, where she taught the same personal safety course to women on campus and in the community. Published with Scribe Media in April 2026, A.W.A.R.E. distills that R.A.D. Systems curriculum into a story-driven playbook and reached number one in three Amazon categories on its second day. Now retired, Gale works as an author, teaching the same material to a far larger audience. The book's title captures her method: Alert, Watch, Assess, Respond, Escape.