Where There's a Will, There's a Way 4 12 - Broward Sheriff's Office

Message From the Sheriff
Making Headway in an Alarming Situation
We all know how effective alarm systems can be in deterring theft —
especially when someone pays attention to them. And BSO does pay
attention to them — all 51,691 alarm calls in 2002 alone, in fact. The
year before that, we responded to 63,385 calls and in 2000, to 65,911
calls. You might ask why alarm calls in our jurisdiction are decreasing
when we’re all hearing so much on the news about false alarms being
on the increase.
National statistics indicate than more than 90 percent of all alarm calls
are false alarms and that 80 percent of those false alarms are caused by
operator error. With more and more people buying alarm systems
nationwide, it only goes to reason that there are increasing numbers of
false alarms. That’s not the case in the communities where we patrol and there’s a very
good reason for it, too.
Our deputies are trained to treat every alarm as a serious call for
service. Of the 51,691 calls we responded to last year, 51,552 (or 99.7
percent of them) were false alarms. In other communities nationwide,
those false alarm statistics are causing agencies to rethink their response
time to alarm calls. In fact, in Los Angeles and eight other major cities,
law enforcement now refuses to respond to unverified alarm calls. We
don’t agree with that philosophy.
Rather than punish those who originate false alarms — and run the
risk of not responding to a real alarm call — we’re spending our efforts
focusing on educating homeowners and business operators on alarm
operation. Through POWERTRAC sm , we track
all alarm calls and once we’ve
received two false alarms from the
same address, we dispatch a
deputy to discuss the problem
and work with the homeowner
or business operator to take
corrective action. This benefits not
only the alarm’s owner, but also BSO.
When you take into account that it
takes an average of 14 minutes for a
deputy to respond to an alarm call and
multiply that by 4,300 events a
month, you see that our
2
deputies are spending about 1,000 hours a month on alarm calls. Those
hours have a value in excess of $22,000 of taxpayer dollars! Multiply
that amount by 12 months and it has even more impact. Our efforts are
paying off. Since the year 2000, we’ve effectuated savings estimated at
$112,408.58 and reduced alarm activations by more than 18 percent.
And we’re not finished yet.
Our false alarm philosophy is healthy and proactive. It protects those
who need it and assists those who don’t. All around, yet another win-win
situation for BSO and the people we serve.
— Sheriff Ken Jenne
Test Your Alarm System Aptitude
There are a few basic steps that alarm system owners can take to reduce the
number of false alarms:
Do you …
✔ Know your password and how to cancel false alarms?
✔ Check your system's back-up batteries frequently?
✔ Check all windows and doors to make sure that they are completely
closed and locked?
Have you …
✔ Taught everyone who has a key to your property how to operate the
system and how to cancel an alarm?
✔ Remembered to make similar arrangements for houseguests and
workers?
✔ Made sure your motion sensors are properly adjusted?
✔ Notified your security system if you think your system isn’t working
properly?
Paying attention to these simple processes can make an alarming difference!
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Broward Sheriff’s Office. We welcome and encourage your ideas, stories,
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