Salt Lake City Alarm Ordinance
Assessment
Benefits to the Police Department
The Salt Lake City Police Department experienced a 90 percent decrease in alarm-related calls for service during the first nine months the verified response ordinance was in effect, from December 1, 2000 to August 1, 2001, compared to the same time frame one year prior. This represents 6,338 fewer calls for service or the equivalent of five full-time police officers (valued at about $400,000). This time and money is now available for higher priority police services. There are fewer backlogs of calls for service. Responses to high priority calls for service have dropped from five to three minutes. Today, the probability that a crime has in fact occurred when police are called to an alarm activation is much higher. There has been a corresponding decrease in the workload of police call takers and dispatchers, the alarm unit, the city treasury department, and the court of appeals.
Initially, alarm company spokespersons said they believed that burglaries in the city would increase when police ceased to become the first responders to the alarm signal. We have not found this to be the case. The number of burglaries have remained consistent over the past two years and even decreased by 24 percent from burglaries in 1998. Passage of the ordinance on December 1, 2000 made no significant impact on the number of burglaries.
Six burglars were arrested by police as a result of private security guards' response to alarms on 720 police responses during the first nine months of the ordinance enactment. By comparison, in 1999, prior to adoption of verified response, only five burglars were arrested on 10,200 police responses to alarm signals.
Said Salt Lake City Watch Commander Zane Smith:
In the first three months of enforcement, this alarm ordinance has returned more patrol hours to our department and helped to decrease the backlog of calls better than anything attempted in the past 15 years.
Benefits to Alarm Owners
The benefits of verified response to alarm owners include a six to fifteen minute alarm activation response time from private guard companies, far lower than what the police were able to provide; lower average costs from the modest monthly fee than most alarm owners were paying in fines for false alarms; and continued police response to human-activated alarms such as robbery, panic or duress signals.
Benefits to the alarm industry
The alarm industry benefits from verified response in that they are now providing their customers with a valued quick response to alarm activations; they can redirect time and effort into serving their customers rather than trying to appease police; and they have increased their revenue from the additional monthly fees charged to customers.
The following quote from the president of the Utah Alarm Association reveals how verified response has affected the alarm industry:
Most of the members of the Utah Alarm Association believe it is a win-win situation for everybody. It is cheaper and easier for the alarm companies. It has been burdensome dealing with the police in the past. All I do is call a guard, and the guard is more than happy to have my business. 8
Prior to passage of the verified response alarm ordinance, one alarm company had a guard division in place and merely needed to hire some additional guards. The police department provided a list of nine state-licensed and bonded guard companies to those alarm companies that needed to subcontract with guard companies in order to respond to alarm activations. Alarm company representatives we spoke with have indicated that their sales have not been impacted by the shift to private guard response. Citizens are continuing to purchase alarm systems.
Verified response has shifted the management of the false alarm problem from the police to alarm owners and the alarm companies they choose to do business with. Economic supply and demand will now govern the delivery and cost of private security responses to alarm activations. If a guard company's performance proves unsatisfactory, the competition will provide another company to take its place.
Salt Lake City's verified response alarm ordinance is a long-term solution to the false alarm problem, a problem that our department had been struggling with for twenty years. By no longer attempting to manage a private sector problem, we believe we have solved the false alarm problem for the police department.
Contact
Shanna Werner
Salt Lake City Police Department Alarm Administrator
315 East 200 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Phone: (801) 799-3113
Shanna.Werner@ci.slc.ut.us
Resources
1 Erwin Blackstone, Simon Hakim and Uriel Spiegel. "Government Competes and Retreats, Public Gains: Shedding Police Response to Burglar Alarms." January 23, 2001. Center for Competitive Government at Temple University: Philadelphia, Pa.
2 Each alarm call requires two officers for an average half hour on each alarm call at an average wage of $60 per hour. This figure includes salary, benefits, and the amortized costs of the police car, computer and equipment.
3 Commercial intrusion alarms accounted for two-and-a-half times the number of residential alarms, mostly due to employees who did not have or remember the alarm code, and to cleaning crews inadvertently setting off the alarm while working. Residential alarms tend to be activated by children and relatives who do not know how to use the alarm system, and by the motion of pets, insects, ceiling fans, and even floating balloons. The National and Burglar Alarm Association calculate that 76 percent of alarm activations are caused by user error.
4 "Las Vegas PD Gambles on No Response Policy and Wins." Donna Englander, Security Sales magazine, December 1998.
5 Salt Lake City Attorney's Office. Roger F. Cutler, City Attorney. Salt Lake City and County Building, Room 505, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111, Tel. (801) 535-7788.
6 "Las Vegas PD Gambles on No Response Policy and Wins." Donna Englander, Security Sales magazine, December 1998.
7 Erwin A. Blackstone, Simon Hakim and Uriel Spiegel. "Response to Alarms: A New Type of Club Good." March 2000. Drs. Blackstone and Hakim are professors of economics and members of the Center for Competitive Government at Temple University in Philadelphia.
8 "No police when alarm goes off? No problem." Laura Hancock, Desert News, December 28, 2000.