David Cay Johnston is a NY Times reporter who has written a new book called ‘Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick you with the Bill)’ that is getting a fair amount of press in the States.
In addition to the typical targets like Wal-Mart that you might expect a book like this to discuss, Johnston devotes an entire chapter to the alarm industry… referring to the fact that police response to burglar alarms is an incredibly costly and ineffective use of taxpayers money.
In essence, he is saying the same thing that I have said on this blog and in several interviews… that the alarm industry is a parasite on the Police and is profiting through making a bad problem worse.
Here is a quote:
“The burglar alarm industry charges hefty fees for a service that costs it very little. Then the industry dumps onto the taxpayers the real costs of providing the very service it sells. This is economic pollution sold to people under the guise of making them safe. In fact, it makes them less safe.”
I was interviewed a couple weeks ago by Security Systems News, an American trade journal that was writing a story about the book. I was the lone industry voice (at least in the article) that was agreeing with Johnston. Click here to read the SSN story.
There is absolutely no question that police response to burglar alarms is a collossal waste of taxpayers money. With a false alarm rate of 98%, taxpayers throughout North America are getting fleeced by helping subsidize the alarm industry.. in effect allowing it to sell an incomplete service and get rich doing so.
What’s worse then the fact that the alarm industry is offloading the crucial component of its ‘service’ to the Police, is the fact that Police response itself, irrespective of who pays for it, is virtually useless.
The simple fact is that with a 98% false alarm rate (70% of which are caused by user error), Police Departments throughout North America cannot, and will not, provide immediate response. Instead, they require that an effort is made to ‘verify’ the alarm. This involves calling the alarmed premises, and in the case of ‘enhanced call verification‘ making a second call to the alarm owner, before dispatching the Police. This process all but ensures that by the time the Police are notified of the alarm, any incident that might have taken place will be long over. Unless a neighbour or some other human being actually calls 911 to report a burglary in progress, the Police are not going to respond anytime soon.
A burglar alarm is not a deterrent… it’s only purpose is to provide information that has an incredibly short shelf life. Unless response to the alarm is immediate, there is incredibly little value offered by a monitored alarm.
I’ve written about this topic a few times, here are links to three relevant posts…
- The Alarm Industry is a Parasite on the Police
- Provident vs. Alarmforce on CKNW
- Burglar Alarms: an ‘Unneccessary Burden’?
On a more positive note, about what you actually should be doing, read ‘Five Minute Proofing‘ … in my experience, Five Minute Proofing is the most effective tactic that you can use to reduce your risk of being a victim. Of course, what is essential for Five Minute Proofing to be of value is that response to your alarm is immediate… the reason that Police response doesn’t work is that it is very hard, if not impossible, to ‘One Hour Proof’.