To respond better to burglaries, the police need to respond to fewer burglar alarms
Of all the new policies instituted by Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto in response to the bureau’s staffing crisis, the policy for burglar alarms is among the least, well, alarming. In fact, it is a common-sense move that will make Pittsburghers more safe, not less.
Under the new policy, instead of sending officers to visit each alarm, dispatchers will instead wait until the alert is verified — either through the relevant security agency, through secondary alarms, or through another person. Some systems, like medical alerts or human-activated alarms, will remain priority calls no matter what.
This doesn’t mean that Pittsburghers will be abandoned by law enforcement as intruders rummage through their homes.
The truth is the overwhelming majority of burglar alarms are set off accidentally: Nationwide, somewhere between 94% and 99% of alarms don’t indicate a crime in process. This was even higher in Pittsburgh last year, where the bureau’s data show that alarms resulted in police reports less than 0.5% of the time.
Responding to each and every alarm is labor intensive for police officers. Handling burglar alarms is currently the second most common call officers respond to, after parking complaints. And they are very, very annoying for police officers who usually find they’ve been called out for nothing.
This verification process has already found great success in other cities. For example, Salt Lake City implemented a verified response system in 2000. An analysis published 20 years later showed that police responded to 87% fewer alarms while burglary incidents dropped by 26%. Overall, police response times also improved, likely because of more clearly defined priorities. It stands to reason: less wasted police team, less crime.
Further, in Pittsburgh burglaries have been on a sharp and nearly decade-long downward trend. In 2015, there were about 2,200 burglaries. That fell to 1,300 in 2019, and then to 800 in 2022.
Freeing officers from handling false alarms will also lead to a more balanced and fair allocation of police resources. Private security systems only protect those who can afford them, and right now they occupy a disproportionate amount of the police’s time and resources.
The new measures will also crack down on locations that send multiple false alerts. About 1,500 addresses account for 75% of all alarms.
Altogether, this new response model will make police response faster and more accurate — without sacrificing the safety of anyone whose alarm system is triggered by a genuine emergency.