False Alarm Perspectives

Section 5: Private Response

Private response is as old as the alarm industry. Some police ask why they must respond to alarms at all; they view alarm security as a contractual arrangement between alarm companies and their subscribers something distinct from a citizen request for police assistance. Also, because of fiscal restraints, many law enforcement executives are looking for tasks to shed. Alarm response may become a service the police can no longer provide, especially in major cities.

This section looks at the issues involved in private alarm response and presents case studies of communities that have used it with varying degrees of success.

Seven issues central to private alarm response are as follows: the underlying reason that drives a community's use of private responders instead of the police, speed of response, quality of response, cost of response, effectiveness at reducing false alarm dispatches for police, effects on alarm users, and the police perspective.

• Reason for private response. Businesses at high risk for burglary are often required by their insurers to subscribe to a UL-listed central station, which is required by UL to provide private response to alarms it receives.

  Another reason for private response is a desire for a more visible burglary deterrent. A neighborhood association that wishes to increase the security of its neighborhood can contract with a security company to provide as many roving patrols as the association can afford. Those patrols--already in the neighborhood--can be dispatched by a radio message from a central station and reach the alarm site in seconds.

  A third reason for using private response is to avoid false alarm fines. In cities where false alarm fines or penalties are harsh, users may contract with private responders in order to avoid those fines or penalties--and to make sure their number of false alarm calls to the police does not reach the point where police decide not to respond.
  A fourth reason for private response is absolute necessity. In some cities, police simply will not respond to an alarm call unless it has been verified with a visit to the site. In that case, unless alarm users want to respond to alarms themselves, the only alternative is to have a private responder come to the scene. If a genuine need for the police is found, the police are called then.

• Speed of response. In a small, dense neighborhood with roving security patrols, private responders are almost certain to respond faster than the police. In a large, spread-out city, private responders may take longer than police because a security company may not have as many cars on the road as the police do. Ensuring a reasonable response time costs money, so speed of response also depends on the quality of security company being used.

• Quality of response. Users of private response services cite a wide range in the quality of response. A first-class security company may screen applicants carefully, train its officers for hundreds of hours, pay them well, and provide topnotch equipment. Other companies may not. One alarm company owner who contracts with a private response company for his alarm customers complains, "These [security officers] get about $6 an hour. Do you want these guys armed coming to your door?"
  The quality of response from private responders may be higher than that from the police when private responders have keys to the premises, as they can investigate the premises inside and out. Also, they may have more time to spend looking for less obvious signs of attempted entry.

• Cost of response. Fees for private response vary, but they run in the vicinity of a dollar a day per site. Proponents of private response note that the expertise required to respond to burglar alarms is much cheaper to provide than the expertise of a full-fledged police officer. Therefore, using security officers instead of police officers for a first line of response is cost-effective. Of course, for the user, private response is always more expensive than free police service, at least until false alarm fines mount up.

• Effectiveness at reducing false alarm dispatches for police. Does private response reduce false alarm dispatches for police? The answer is: That depends. Most private response companies contacted call the police at the same time as they dispatch their security officers.
  In some cases, there may be no compelling reason to have called the police. In other cases, private responders are simply complying with various standards. For example, UL-listed central stations must send either two security officers or one security officer and the police--and to keep their costs down, they often choose the second option. In that case, clearly no false alarm dispatch for the police is avoided. But some security company owners point out that an ordinance requiring that all alarms be verified in person before police are called would force UL-listed response companies to send two security officers to an alarm site (and force others to send at least one security officer), thereby greatly reducing false alarm dispatches.
  Logically, if police are called every time private responders head out to an alarm site, no false alarm calls are being avoided--unless, as is sometimes the case, the private responders arrive first, see there is no need for the police, and tell the police it was a false alarm.
  However, even if the police do arrive at the scene, if they have a good relationship with the private responder, they may be able to rely on the responder's findings and spend much less time on-site. One police officer observes, "We often still go [after being told by a private responder that there's no burglar] but just check in and see that the security officers have secured the situation." Therefore, even when private response does not eliminate false police calls, it may reduce the time police spend on their response.
  Of course, in situations where private responders first visit an alarm site, then call the police only if necessary, the effect on false alarm dispatches for police is significant: there are no false dispatches. Sometimes private responders refrain from calling the police because of police policy or local ordinance; other times they leave the police alone because they can tell from the type of alarm signal received (trouble with the system rather than intrusion) that the police are not needed.

• Effects on alarm users. When private response is done well, alarm users benefit. When it's done poorly, users suffer. Therefore, the effect of private response on alarm users is primarily a question of the quality of service that users are willing or able to pay for.
  A side effect of poor-quality, slow private response, however, especially in areas where police do not respond to alarm calls, is that alarm users begin to wonder why they should bother having alarms at all. And certainly, slow response--whether from private responders or the police--undermines the deterrent and apprehension value of alarms.

• Police perspective. Some police are uncomfortable with having someone else--private responders, possibly armed--roaming around an alarm site they are trying to investigate. Others are pleased to have someone else take on the chore of responding to alarms. Given that 95 percent to 98 percent of all alarm calls may be false, one police department alarm specialist asks, what's the actual amount of risk in sending security officers simply to check out a site to see whether police are needed?

Case Studies

1: Santa Monica, California

According to the president of the Santa Monica Protective Association, the Santa Monica Police Department does excellent work. However, the department is busy, and after a burglar murdered two neighborhood schoolchildren who accidentally walked in on him, the association decided to establish an especially high security visibility in its upscale neighborhood.

The 12-year-old association collects dues from its members and currently contracts with Westec Security to provide armed patrol services. Because the 890 members do not comprise all the homeowners in the neighborhood, and because not all homeowners have alarm systems, the protection level at each home varies from having only the general deterrent value of the patrol cars, to having also an alarm system plus police response, to having also response from a Westec "pool" car (not assigned to that neighborhood specifically), to having response directly from the security patrol cars in the neighborhood.

The association president reports that alarm response time from a Westec car patrolling the neighborhood is 90 seconds or less. (He says he tests the response time regularly.) He reports that alarm response time from a Westec "pool" car is about five minutes. For comparison, the police department reports its alarm response time as ranging from a couple of minutes if a car is nearby to as much as an hour, for an average of about 15 minutes.

The association contracts for three patrol cars from 8:00 am to midnight and two cars from midnight to 8:00 am. It is considering adding more cars.

When an alarm rings at Westec, the company first calls the police, then dispatches its security officers. The security officers, who usually arrive first, investigate the alarm. If the police are not needed the security officers pass that message to the police, who can then decide whether to come or not.

According to the police, if there is trouble, the security company does a good job of containing the situation and waiting for the police to arrive and make the arrest. "That's an asset to the city," a police spokesman says.

The police department is generally comfortable with accepting dispatch cancellations from Westec dispatchers: "They do save us some runs. To cancel a dispatch, they give us the alarm number. If we have any concerns, we call them back."

The association president reports being very pleased with the situation overall.

CONTACTS:

Santa Monica Protective Association,
phone (310) 395-7633.

Santa Monica Police Department,
1685 Main Street,
Santa Monica, CA 90401;
phone (310) 458-8418

Westec Security, Inc.,
100 Bayview Circle, Suite 1000,
Newport Beach, CA 92660;
phone (714) 951-1806.

2: Las Vegas, Nevada

It is the policy of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department not to respond to unverified commercial or residential burglar alarms. Therefore, alarm users must use private alarm response, and the false alarm problem for the police is insignificant. However, an alarm company owner whose company monitors 4,000 alarms in Las Vegas apartment complexes reports that his customers receive basically no response to their alarms he says the quality of private response service he has been able to obtain for his customers is that poor. He adds that some high-income areas of the city have obtained better private response at a higher cost.

The manager of Cypress Springs Apartments in Las Vegas complains it often takes an hour or two for the private response company to send security officers to investigate an alarm at her 144-unit garden apartment complex. The procedure is that when an alarm is activated (every apartment is alarmed), the signal is transmitted to the central station (Network Multifamily Security), which calls the private security company with which it contracts. Security officers travel to and investigate the alarm site and then call the police only if they are needed. The apartment manager and the alarm company president, like others who receive slow alarm response, find the situation frustrating. However, the apartment manager reports that in three years the security officers have never actually had to call the police. Therefore, while having to rely on private response seems a hardship to some, it is hard to pinpoint the harm if no police response has actually been needed anyway.

CONTACTS:

Cypress Springs Apartments,
4001 E. Bonanza,
Las Vegas, NV 89110;
phone (702) 459-3193.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department,
400 E. Stewart Avenue,
Las Vegas, NV 89101;
phone (702) 795-3111.

Network Multifamily Security,
14275 Midway Road, Suite 350,
Dallas, TX 75244;
phone (214) 490-9902.

A few other companies that provide private alarm response are:

• Commonwealth Security Systems, Inc.,
  3040 Industry Drive,
  Lancaster, PA 17604;
  phone (717) 394-3781.
• Mutual Central Alarm Services,
  10 W. 46th Street,
  New York, NY 10036;
  phone (212) 768-0808.
• Vector Security,
  3400 McKnight East Drive,
  Pittsburgh, PA 15237;
  phone (412) 931-5160.