False alarm penalties should be deterrent
When a security system alarm goes off, police respond due to the expectation that there is a need for their presence. When that alarm goes off erroneously, it is more than a minor annoyance; it is a waste of resources and it can put other residents or businesses at greater risk due to the unneeded deployment of officers.
As reported by the Democrat’s Dennis Rich, the Sedalia City Council on Tuesday approved a revised fee schedule for false alarm calls. It issues no charge for the first three false alarms in a calendar year to a private property with a security system. The fourth through sixth false alarms invoke a $25 charge for each incident, and the seventh and subsequent alarms will be charged $50 per call.
As Rich wrote: “The revised ordinance exempts alarms caused by an attempted illegal entry, where no suspect is present but physical evidence indicates an attempted break-in; alarms intentionally caused by the property owner acting under the belief that a need existed to summon public safety officials; and alarms caused by severe weather.”
We have no problem with the exemptions, as they are logical and necessary. We also believe the allowance of three “free” false alarms is acceptable, if not a tad lenient.
But if the invocation of fees for subsequent false alarms is designed to serve as a deterrent to waste, those fees must be more substantial than what the council approved. In fact, we didn’t see any reason to move from the previous schedule: $25 each for the first three false alarm calls in a calendar year, $50 for the fourth through sixth calls and $100 for subsequent false alarms.
City staff estimates that each call, including fuel and wages for police and other staff members, amounts to about $50 per call. During the Dec. 27 council meeting, Ward 4 Councilman Ken Norton aptly equated the cost of responding to nearly 700 false alarms — the total from January into early November of 2011 — with the cost of hiring another police officer. Ward 1 Councilman Stephen Galliher said, “People have to be responsible for their businesses,” and noted that false alarm calls declined after the previous schedule with heavier penalties was introduced in 2009.
Ward 3 Councilman Wiley Walter contended at the December meeting that answering false alarms is part of the responsibilities of police and fire departments; we believe responding to repeated false alarms at the same property is indefensible. With three no-charge false alarms and all of the exemptions provided, we see no reason to look away as some security system owners put an unnecessary burden on our public safety departments by failing to address their own issues.
We contend that the new fee schedule serves as less of a deterrent, and therefore could lead to more diversion of public safety resources from areas where they could be needed.
