Dispatch to nowhere

Feb 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Randy Southerland

It is a long Midwestern winter night as Officer Steve McNeal drives his squad car down deserted Main Street. The lawman is in a hurry because his radio has just given him the word: an alarm dispatch at the corner of Fifth and Main. It is an electronics store stocked with just the kind of high-price, easy-to-fence items favored by thieves.

Within minutes he is on the scene. Everything looks OK as he ckecks out front and back, just as it has been every week. As he reports to headquarters, the dispatch is recorded along with the 60 previous times officers have investigated for nothing.

The insistent ringing of a false alarm represents a major problem for police, property owners, and the alarm industry.

False alarms, which spur the needless dispatching of police, are a nationwide problem. Each year thousands of man-hours are wasted in needless investigation; dollars are spent in fines for repeat offenders. Beyond the obvious expense, false alarms have also created a serious public relations problem for the alarm industry.

Some police departments are reluctant to respond to an alarm because of the high likelihood that it's just another of the estimated 90-98 percent of alarms that are false. In 1998, for example, Indianapolis law enforcement officers responded to 29,651 false alarms expending 20,460 hours of police officer time.

In addition to increasing fines, some departments have taken an even harder line. In 1996, the Chief of Police of London, Ontario, announced that his officers would no longer respond to security alarms from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. unless they had proof that a criminal act was being committed.

It is a problem that the industry takes seriously and is therefore rapidly devising methods to silence false alarms - from education to better technology.

Alarm association pushes education Beginning last February, the industry-funded Coordinated Alarm Reduction Effort (CARE) began promoting the effective and responsible use of electronic security through a series of False Alarm Reduction Summits. The seminars, which bring together local police officials, alarm dealers and company representatives, are based on the Model States Program developed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP).

The program - first tested in Philadelphia, Elgin, Ill., and Bellevue, Wash - creates an integrated plan to reduce alarms.

"First, there must be an attempt to verify each false alarm," says Mike Shanahan, retired chief of the University of Washington Police Department who is active with the IACP. "We were saying verify, verify, and verify. This alone can reduce statistics by as much as 40 percent."

Under the program, Philadelphia, a city of 1.4 million, recorded an annual 9.5 percent reduction in false alarms, amounting to a decrease of 11,904 false dispatches. Similar reductions also occurred in the other pioneer cities, according to Shanahan.

Along with verification, the program also urges cancellation of police dispatches after the false alarms have been verified.

Another vital aspect of the program is to allow repeat offenders to attend an alarm class instead of paying a fine. The Phoenix Police Department found that 90 percent of participants in its alarm school did not have another false alarm in the succeeding 12 months. Alarm schools - taught by industry experts - follow a model curriculum including information on local ordinances, alarm system maintenance and operations, and communication with alarm service providers.

"They found by giving the class, the false alarm repeat rate was very low," says Shanahan. "Education and training work."

Paired with education efforts and improved procedures, the model program also incorporated escalating fines and a restricted police response after a certain number of false alarms. The success of the pilot efforts also prompted the alarm industry to pay full time coordinators in selected states to promote the program.

"I think nationally in the last three or four years we have reduced false dispatches 40 percent or more," says Stan Martin, a vice president with ADI Security Systems who is currently serving as national coordinator for the Alarm Industry Research and Education Foundation (AIREF). "Most of the cities that were showing increases are now showing a reverse trend. Even a slight reduction is significant when you consider that we are putting in 15 percent more systems every year. We are turning the corner on this thing."

Martin credits the reduction in false alarms to the industry's educational efforts for police departments and dealers. Research shows that "roughly 20 percent of the systems produce 80 percent of the problems," he says. "If everyone would focus on their worst installations and customers, then it's not that hard to reduce the problem."

In 1998, in Indianapolis, the top 20 false alarm offenders accounted for 553 false alarms. The worst offender - a local business - drew false dispatches 66 times. Martin noted that systems at business or commercial installations have a false dispatch rate that is three to 10 times higher than the average residential customer. That dismal record is possibly due to the high number of untrained people using more complicated systems.

Martin and his organization have been spearheading a series of False Alarm Summits through the AIREF's Coordinated Alarm Reduction Effort (CARE) - a program designed to promote the responsible use of electronic security. "We're holding summits and training sessions all around the country to educate police and alarm dealers on how to accurately measure and manage the problem," says Martin. "Unless you give police departments an answer or program to follow, they'll do their own thing and may say 'we're not going to come anymore' and tar everybody with the same brush," Shanahan says.

The alarm industry has long been faced with the problem of police officers who believe their time is being wasted by excessive numbers of false alarms. As recently as five years ago, the alarm industry was still ignoring the problem, according to Martin.

"We tell them we're accepting responsibility for these systems. We're putting a half million dollars a year into this educational effort, and the police department leadership recognizes that the alarm industry is getting a handle on this thing," he said. "They have come to understand that when we all work together, we can reduce these false dispatches 50 or 60 percent in 12 months."

While Martin acknowledges that the vast majority of alarms are false - sometimes as many as 98 percent - he doesn't believe that figure is a true representation of the problem.

He says that a better way of calculating the problem is using an "alarm factor" - the number of dispatches per system each year. For example, if there are 10,000 systems installed and 10,000 dispatches, then that is only one dispatch per system. "Nationally we think we're running one to two dispatches per system per year," he says.

Communities use education, technology to reduce alarms Local government, which bears the cost, has also geared up to fight false alarms by adopting many of the proposals set forth by the industry group. The city of Indianapolis, for example, has combined a novel mix of high technology and publicity to reduce its nearly 30,000 false alarms.

The city had long required each monitored alarm holder to purchase a permit every two years. The compliance rate was about 50 percent.

"We found there were between 40,000 and 45,000 monitored alarms in Marion County, but there were only 26,000 burglar alarm permits in force," says Dave Certo, who until recently headed the regulatory reform efforts of Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. "Law enforcement didn't have accurate information when they were trying to provide a safety service to the community. In addition, it was a huge headache to process all this paper and for individuals to pay the permit fee and file the paperwork. All of that really detracted from the question of why we have false alarms and how we could provide better protection."

The paper permit system was replaced with an electronic database that the alarm companies - which had the most up-to-date information - could update as they added or dropped clients.

"We found there was always one contact between the citizen and the monitoring company every year, every three months or even every month depending upon how the billing was set up," says Certo. "If that contact doesn't occur, then the transaction terminates. The city, on the other hand, had no idea when an alarm system was installed or if it was still being monitored. We had no contact with alarm owners until there was an alarm call."

Indianapolis' Web-based system allows each monitoring company to go to the Web site and update their section of the shared database. The police department's alarm administrator is the only one with access to the entire database.

"Software is so advanced now there's no reason to be doing all of this work by paper," says Certo. "Most electronic systems are sophisticated enough that, with a little bit of programming, anytime a customer service representative for a monitoring company goes in and changes his or her client database, the system can automatically transmit that information to the city without any human effort."

"Even if people had many false alarms, we would have no way of sending them warnings, citations or followup information," he says. "The system will allow the city to identify and contact people who are having problems with their alarm systems."

The new database will allow the city to provide each monitoring company with updates about customers who are experiencing false alarm problems. The city is also launching an intensive community outreach and education program, which has prompted extensive coverage in the local press. Letters sent to permit holders presented statistics about the costs to taxpayers caused by the worst offenders.

Indianapolis has also expanded its fines for chronic abusers. The first false alarm brings a warning, but each additional incident draws fines, which increase from $25 to $100 each. Offenders can also choose between the $100 fine and paying a $30 fine while attending an alarm abuser school.

While fines have the effect of "getting people's attention" Certo agrees with industry representatives that monetary penalties alone can't solve the problem.

They also chose not to adopt one of the more controversial aspects of the NBFAA's model ordinance - suspending police response to chronic offenders. That provision was dropped from the final proposal in the face of opposition from local groups and even police officers who fretted about not responding to a real crime.

"Even if we're only able to eliminate the top 10 percent, that's still a tremendous savings in police officer time that we're now losing," says Certo. "If you concentrate your resources on the worst offenders then you'll immediately achieve a significant reduction in the problem."

By making sure they have accurate data to underpin their false dispatch reduction efforts, Certo says the city can make sure it is targeting the true source of the problem.

Manufacturers move to stop false alarms Most observers agree that false dispatches are usually related to end-user errors. While educating users about their systems can reduce the number of alarms, the industry also believes that the introduction of new manufacturing standards will also prevent such mistakes.

"I'm excited that we have got new equipment coming out in a couple of months built to the new standard. It will help reduce false dispatches on the newer installations," says Martin. "The industry met with the manufacturers and decided that since 80 percent of the problems are related to the end-users, we needed to do something with the equipment to minimize their errors."

More than a dozen new standards will make it more difficult to accidentally set off an alarm. For example, under the new standards, dealers will no longer be able to program exit delays of fewer than 45 seconds. Entry times will be set to at least 30 seconds.

"Dealers set it at ten seconds, someone, coming back in, could set off the alarm," says Martin.

An "abort window" of 15 seconds will prevent the accidental opening of an armed window or door from alerting the monitoring station. A "swinger shutdown" will also prevent repeated transmissions by a defective sensor. Under the new standards, the system automatically shuts down after one transmission until it is rearmed. In the case of a power loss when the system comes back on, no signal can be transmitted for 60 seconds to allow all panels to stabilize.

While these safeguards are certain to reduce some false alarms, it is still unclear just how much impact they will have on the number of false alarms. Industry experts contend that "smart" systems that transmit to remote monitoring stations can allow independent verification of incidents.

For example, Sonitrol, a security firm in Mississauga, Ontario, uses an Audio Sensor that can detect unusual sounds while filtering out the common white noise of an unoccupied building. The system is then able to alert monitor personnel who can listen to stored sound and determine if it truly represents a threat.

Taking a different tact, ADT's SecurVision technology allows for interactive video monitoring. The Boca Raton, Fla.-based company's product is able to recognize the difference between a human intruder and a stray animal on the screen. Other similar products that make full use of computer-aided technology may pave the way for highly accurate security systems that can reduce false dispatches.

It's clear that false alarms remain a serious problem, one that is unlikely to be eliminated totally. Industry's educational efforts, improving technology, and participation of local officials are beginning to chip away at the staggering number of false dispatches. Perhaps the greatest step forward may be the new spirit of cooperation that has emerged between local police and the industry.

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Opening Up About Door Closers
• An Enterprise Approach
• The Framework For Open Systems
• On A Higher Plane
• More from April's issue