Every day, police respond to an astounding and ever-increasing number of false alarm activations. These false alarm activations burden police departments and waste officer time, resources and dollars better employed for other efforts. User errors whether due to inadequate user training or the complexity of some alarm systems are generally held to cause the greatest percentage of false alarms.
Improper installations account for a smaller percentage of false alarms.
In 1995, officers with the Riverside County, California, Sheriff's Department spent more than 8,000 hours responding to alarm calls in unincorporated areas. Response time to burglar alarms currently averages 55 minutes in Los Angeles. Although these statistics come from larger jurisdictions, in proportional terms smaller agencies face the same if not more acute problems. Manpower deployment for a smaller agency is affected greatly by just a few events, which could literally mean there is no one available to answer the next call. The staggering costs to law enforcement are only expected to increase.