(FORTUNE Magazine) – The anticrime industry is coming on like gangbusters. Sales of Mace, the leading self-defense spray, jumped 36% in 1992, and the Bennington, Vermont, company that produces it, MSI, is in the process of going public. Winner International, which makes the Club, a bar that locks steering wheels to prevent theft, is also about to offer its shares to the public. Last year sales at the Sharon, Pennsylvania, manufacturer topped $100 million. Will Quorum International be next? This Phoenix company makes high-tech devices like hand-held screamers to drive away assailants -- just pull a pin, and boom!, 130 decibels, louder than a Guns n' Roses concert. Quorum's sales jumped from $10 million in 1991 to over $100 million last year. Somewhat puzzling: Sales of such self-defense doohickeys are brisk even though crime isn't getting any worse. The homicide and burglary rate, for instance, actually dipped slightly last year. Albert Janjigian, chairman of Stat Resources, a consulting and market research firm in Brookline, Massachusetts, has a theory: ''The crime rate is so high at this point that fluctuations don't seem to change demand for security. Fundamentally people don't feel safe, and they are trying to create a safe haven for themselves.''