9 Times Out Of 10, A Burglar Alarm Means No Crime
By Eric Dexheimer, Austin American-Statesman | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
A check on the drive down
Reed peered through the bank's roll gate into the empty office. After tugging on the gate, he hypothesized that it wasn't making full contact with the latch, producing the false alarm. He called mall security guards, who agreed to contact the bank the following day.
The call, which consumed about an hour of total police time, was extraordinarily common. An
The high rate of false alarms -- most commonly the result of equipment failure or user error -- isn't unusual. Industrywide, false alarms rates of 90 to 99 percent are common.
Large municipal police forces have complained for years that answering tens of thousands of unnecessary calls for service to check out alarms installed and monitored by private companies drains away manpower and diverts their attention from more serious policing -- such as genuine burglaries, which are reported about 20 times a day in
And, while the city's alarm calls trended slowly downward between 2008 and 2012, last year saw an increase in both the number of alarms and percentage that were false. In some parts of the city, especially well-to-do residential neighborhoods, false alarms demanded more police attention than any other type of calls except traffic stops.
The department's efforts have been hampered by a series of weak ordinances and laws that provide little incentive for alarm companies and their customers to cut down on the frequency of false alarms. Some cities, for example, require alarm companies to attempt to contact home or business owners at two separate phone numbers to confirm a break-in or false activation before dialing 911.
Other cities have limited unnecessary calls by refusing to respond to addresses with a high number of false alarms -- a practice even the alarm industry promotes. A
By comparison,
"You could have 100 false alarms" and
And while the city assesses fines for excessive false alarms, thanks to a state law unique to
State lawmakers also set the fines for false alarms relatively low, starting at
Growing alarms
False alarms have plagued police departments ever since the systems started becoming popular in the 1980s. Yet as the number of monitored security systems has grown -- nationally, alarmed homes and businesses have nearly tripled over the past dozen years, according to the
Traditionally, up to 99 percent of all alarms are false. The industry says the number is misleading: Measured against the total number of systems in use, the number of false calls is low. Yet for law enforcement departments called upon to respond to tens of thousands of alarm activations annually, the volume can be a drain, consuming the equivalent of several policing positions each shift.
Over time, it also dulls response to genuine emergencies. "If they cry wolf 98 percent of the time, it's not taken seriously," said
Many customers are under the impression that home and business alarms installed and monitored by private companies, which can cost upward of
But in truth, police say most burglars are in and out in minutes. And like most departments,
The result: "By the time it's dispatched, the chance of catching anyone is next to zero," said Sgt.
Chief
Acevedo added that while his department doesn't regularly track how many arrests result from alarm calls -- he said it will soon start counting them -- police do occasionally interrupt crimes thanks to alarms. He cited two examples in which officers responding to burglar alarms arrived at a crime in progress, including a 2010 incident in which police shot and killed 16-year-old
Yet the last time the city did count arrests tied to burglar alarms, the number was minuscule compared with the volume of alarms. According to an internal report,
"
Other cities that do track such numbers confirm it is rare for a burglar to be apprehended thanks to an alarm.
"Realistically, if someone is in the house, they're in and out pretty quick," said Detective
Even the alarm industry says that the real importance of a police response to burglar alarms isn't to catch burglars, but rather to maintain the perception among lawbreakers that authorities are on the way. At the least, that limits the time lawbreakers stay inside a residence or business, and at best convinces them to avoid it altogether, said
"Traditional alarm systems are not designed to catch burglars; they're designed to scare them off," he said.
Many insurers offer discounts on homeowner premiums for residences with monitored security systems, said
In one, burglars surveyed in prison cited alarm systems as a reason they would avoid a home. Another found that homes with alarms were less likely to be broken into and provided an "umbrella" effect, preventing nearby homes without alarms from burglary, as well.
Paying their way
A traditional criticism of police response to alarms is that it forces all taxpayers to subsidize the minority of residences with alarm systems -- "generally found in more affluent homes," the
In an effort to try to get users to pay their own way, most cities nationally have begun assessing alarm owners an annual registration fee.
Police say they don't calculate whether or not that covers the cost of responding to the calls, including officer and dispatch time, wear and tear on vehicles and the cost of administering the alarm program. "But," said Carney, "my guess is, no, it does not cover it." The internal police report estimated that in 2006 responding to alarms cost
One reason for the shortfall is that, unlike other states, which leave the decision of how best to work with alarm owners to individual municipalities,
In 2005, the law was tightened slightly; today,
Municipalities outside of
Verified response
About two dozen cities nationally have adopted strict rules they say dramatically reduce false alarms without compromising safety. But thanks to a law quietly passed by
Unlike the traditional response, which assumes alarms have been set off by an intruder and so must be answered, "verified response" presumes an alarm is false and so requires an eyewitness to confirm the signal was set off by an actual break-in before police are called. The job typically is performed by private security guards hired by the alarm companies who respond at all hours and alert police only if there is evidence of a break-in.
Cities that have adopted the system say it has improved the efficiency of their police departments without compromising safety.
In
The alarm industry considers verified response to be an extreme form of regulation, however, and has fought hard against it. "It's a horrible model," said Martin, of the alarm coalition. "You're eliminating a core service to everyone in the city. I wouldn't want to live in those cities."
In the early 2000s, several
In response, in 2005 then-Rep.
To date, those hoops have proven insurmountable.
Other police departments took notice. "We all looked at that and said, 'The community isn't ready for verified response,'" said
No
Kunkle, now a law enforcement consultant, calls the reform "good public policy, but terrible politics," adding: "I don't think verified response will ever be proposed in
------
Top false alarm offenders in 2012 and 2013
--
--
--
--Mangia Pizza,
--
--
--NTB Discount Tires,
--
--
--
Why it matters
___
(c)2014 Austin American-Statesman, Texas
Visit Austin American-Statesman, Texas at www.statesman.com
Distributed by MCT Information Services
Wordcount: | 2712 |
BRIEF: Police: woman left 10-year-old to be sexually assaulted while she played pool
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News