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EDITORIAL: Police, City Were Right About Burglary Alarms

Posted on: Friday, 3 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Wash.

Mar. 3--Like many citizens we often are quick to notice when government decisions fail.

But we want to salute Bellingham Police Department officials and City Council members for a decision that has gone exceedingly well.

Late in 2004, the council voted to enact a policy that stopped police officers from responding to every burglary alarm triggered in the city.

Police officials, led by Chief Randy Carroll, argued that sending officers to false alarms was wasting too much time and money. Under the new policy, police no longer respond to intrusion alarms. Instead they wait for verification from alarm and security companies that a burglary has actually taken place before responding to the scene.

Alarm companies and many citizens worried that the change would mean more burglaries, more burglars escaping arrest and a loss of income for security and alarm companies that could no longer promise immediate police response to a triggered alarm. The Bellingham Herald editorial board at the time echoed those concerns, saying the city's proposed solution would come at the expense of resident safety.

But an analysis by Bellingham Herald reporter Kira Millage and police officials of police records before and after the change in law shows none of the concerns has proven true to date.

Millage found that the number of burglaries dropped slightly from 2004 to 2005 - residential burglaries down from 549 to 529, and commercial burglaries from 295 to 266.

But the number of false alarms Bellingham police responded to dropped sharply, from 1,288 in 2004 to just 355 in 2005. The decrease means thousands of hours of officer time to work combating burglary and other crimes in the community.

Alarm companies have been forced to work more with security companies, raising costs to consumers some. And some alarm company officials say that has cost them some customers. But others say there hasn't been a noticeable impact on business, and meanwhile companies that provide security personnel have seen an increase in business.

Those security personnel are reportedly responding to alarms more quickly than police used to be able to in many cases. If an alarm proves to be legitimate, the security personnel immediately contact police officers, who arrive on the scene knowing in most cases they are responding to a legitimate crime call.

Chief Carroll told Millage that the community is heading in the right direction and working out the few kinks in the new system.

He trumpeted the policy's effectiveness, telling Millage, "One of my messages to those naysayers from alarm companies and the alarm industry: Your scare tactics, your attempt to terrorize this community and (make it believe) crime would go through the roof has proven to be absolutely false."

He said the police department still responds to too many false alarms and will be working with businesses and institutions to try and help cut down on the human error that often leads to such false alarms.

As for concerns that more burglars are getting away, Carroll said the police have no record of ever catching a residential burglar as the result of an alarm, though they have caught commercial burglars that way.

Carroll told Millage the policy is working. And the statistics seem to back him up. We hope that remains the case as time goes on and we salute him and other city officials for creating a policy that appears to be working well.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Wash.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Bellingham Herald, Wash.

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