When people buy home security systems,
there’s a belief that it will help ensure a swift police response in the event
of a break-in or other incident.
But that is a myth.
In a press release announced by Pleasanton-based
Deep
Sentinel, the study looks
at police responses to home security alarms and finds that a large number of
these calls go unanswered. In fact, due to the high number of false alarms,
dozens of cities have adopted non-response policies.
Notably, San Jose, San Francisco, Fremont and
Las Vegas are among the 26 cities with a combined population of a combined
population of 7,218,593 categorically that will NOT respond to alarm calls.
Deep Sentinel Dispels Myth That Police Respond to All Home Alarm
Calls
New study from Deep Sentinel Labs finds overabundance of false
alarms has contributed to dozens of cities adopting non-response policies
PLEASANTON,
Calif. – August 8, 2018 – Deep Sentinel, a pioneer in AI-powered home
protection, today released findings that dispute a widespread notion that
police respond to all home alarms. The study conducted by Deep Sentinel Labs,
the research arm of Deep Sentinel, looked at all the 765 U.S. cities with a
population of around 50,000 or more (according to the US Census Bureau) and
examined policies surrounding home security systems and subsequent police
response, as well as the impact of false alarms. Among the key findings:
●
For more than 40 percent of residents
living in U.S. cities with a population of around 50,000 or more, police will
not respond or will not guarantee that they will respond to residential alarm
calls.
●
In America’s most populous cities
with one million or more residents, nearly 80 percent have no guaranteed police
coverage for their alarms. Police in these cities, ranging from New York City
to San Jose, say they will not respond or cannot guarantee they will respond to
these calls.
●
26 cities with a combined population
of a combined population of 7,218,593 categorically will NOT respond to alarm
calls. This represents 6 percent of the total 126 million people covered by the
study.
10 Top No Alarm Response Cities
|
NO
Response City
|
Population
|
|
San Jose, CA
|
1,035,317
|
|
San Francisco, CA
|
884,363
|
|
Seattle, WA
|
724,745
|
|
Detroit, MI
|
673,104
|
|
Las Vegas, NV
|
641,676
|
|
Milwaukee, WI
|
595,351
|
|
Fremont, CA
|
234,962
|
|
Modesto, CA
|
214,221
|
|
Fontana, CA
|
211,815
|
|
Salt Lake City, UT
|
200,544
|
●
Police response to home alarm calls
varies across states. In the image below, states with lighter colors are more
likely to respond to an event than those in deep red, where cities surveyed
within that state will not respond or do not guarantee a response. To find out
if police respond to alarm calls in your city, search the Deep Sentinel False
Alarm database.
These findings dispel the myth that police
rush to the scene when alarms sound from alarm companies such as ADT, Vivint,
Protect America, SimpliSafe and others. This is in sharp contrast to focus
groups and various consumer panelist surveys from Deep Sentinel that indicate
that almost all consumers who have installed an alarm system believe that
police will respond.
TOO MANY FALSE
ALARMS
A key reason for the lack of police response
to home security calls is due to false alarms. According to data from the
Center from Problem Oriented Policing, police respond to more than 36 million
alarm activations every year in the U.S., which costs an estimated $1.8
billion. Most of these calls are false. Additional law enforcement agency
research from Deep Sentinel Labs underscores this study, revealing that law
enforcement agencies across the country say that 95 percent of alarm calls are
false. As a result, they have stopped responding to alarms from alarm
companies, finding them very costly and a drain on agency resources that could
otherwise be used to address real offenses.
“After conducting preliminary surveys with
law enforcement officers, agencies and consumers, we learned that police view
alarm companies like most people view car alarms: they overwhelmingly believe
that a majority of alarm calls they get will be bogus, with only one percent
being the real deal,” said David Selinger, CEO and Founder of Deep Sentinel.
“We chose to dig a little deeper to get a broader view of the problem across
America. Our data offers a better understanding of how false alarms affect
homeowners who have installed alarm systems. They are living with a false sense
of security in thinking that installing an alarm means that police will
respond.”
Methodology
For the purposes of this study, Deep Sentinel
Labs analyzed all U.S. cities with a population over 50,000 according to the
2017 U.S. Census Bureau. The populations of these cities range from 50,000 to
8.6 million, a study covering a total population of 126,000,000. The analysis
performed analyzed all city and local laws and policies governing how law
enforcement responds to residential home alarm calls: local civic codes, city’s
ordinances. Further, these legal restrictions were validated by contacting
local police departments by phone. The result of this primary research was then
tabulated and analyzed.
About Deep Sentinel
Deep Sentinel is a pioneer
in AI-based home protection. The company’s intelligent crime prevention
transforms home security from false alarms and ineffective after-the-fact crime
alerts to real-time crime prediction and prevention. With Deep Sentinel,
Americans can gain a reliable, cost-effective way to protect their homes and
stop a burglary, mail theft or driveway break-in before it happens – and feel
dramatically safer at home, at work and on vacation. www.deepsentinel.com.
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