Based on the tenet that survival is primarily the police officer's responsibility, this text discusses the five basic components of the officer survival system. The beginning chapter defines the survival attitude, describes how this attitude is related to officer survival, and discusses the survival attitude as a self-fulfilling prophecy in which a person's beliefs tend to subconsciously affect that person's behavior. Physical conditioning and its importance for self-defense is examined, and recommendations are made for a physical fitness program and for mandatory standards for officer fitness. Other chapters give an overview of the technological progress and recent advances in protective equipment for law enforcement officers and emphasize the need for ongoing, practical, job-related training, including problem simulation and training within smaller agencies. Survival tactics ranging from use of secondary weapons to proper search and traffic stop procedures are discussed. A final chapter describes some particular survival problems of plainclothes personnel and recommendations for improvement.