Working in partnership with the police is key for the intruder alarm industry and there is strong evidence to suggest that this relationship is working well, say the British Security Industry Association's Security Systems Section.
In the UK, we have come to expect a swift police response to intruder alarm activations and although this has been the norm for many years in this country, such a service does not come as standard elsewhere in Europe. The reasons behind this are varied but it is mainly focused on false alarms. In Spain, for example, if the police are called out to a false alarm the occupier is potentially liable for a €5,000 fine and therefore a guard will be the first response. In the Czech Republic licensed armed response personnel are used in place of the police and this is a similar story for France. On the other hand, in Germany and much of northern Europe it is much more like the UK.
High false alarm numbers:
There was a time, some 15 years ago, when the UK could potentially have moved down the guard response route meaning there would be no police attendance. At the time, the main reason for implementing this system was because of a high number of false alarms.
For every alarm system that was installed, 1.5 false alarms were being generated per year and the police were losing patience.
The electronic security industry recognised this problem and took steps to put it in order. Over the subsequent years, European standards (the EN501 series) were introduced, a UK scheme document (PD6662) was established, and perhaps most importantly of all, DD243 (now to be BS8243 ) and the principle of sequential alarms were created.
Robust policy:
All of this was put into action alongside a robust policy from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) that supported the third party certification of alarm companies and their installations, the security vetting of personnel and a method that measured alarm performance, known as the system of Unique Reference Numbers (URN).
This action established minimum standards, strong preventive maintenance regimes, and the removal of many operator errors, which were all combined with improvements in electronics.
This has now reduced false alarms to just one per system per annum, which is a remarkable fact alone. However, combining it with the information that the number of alarm systems has been increasing in this same time period makes this achievement even more outstanding.
Monitoring increase:
In 1995 there were 772,000 monitored systems with police response and this increased steadily year after year until 2009. There are now approximately 1.1 million systems in the UK with police response.
In 2010, a new British Standard 8243 will be published, which follows the new ACPO policy and identification by the police service that Panic Alarms (known as Hold up Alarms (HUA) in European standards) are a significant cause of false alarms.
The new standard will provide users and installers with options that will reduce this false alarm problem even further.
Any system that has two false alarms created by a HUA within a rolling twelve months can have the option of including telephone verification, audio or CCTV back up. All this gives both the police and most importantly the user of systems a higher level of confidence.
Effective role:
There has been some evidence of crime moving away from premises that are protected by a monitored intruder alarm with police response, which demonstrates how effective a role the police can play in protecting sites.
This, coupled with the improvement and development of technology, has led to a reduction in burglary and demonstrates why installing a monitored and policed intruder alarm is a good move.
In 2002 there were 890,000 incidents, however by 2008/9 this was down to 582,000, which is a considerable drop of 355,000. In the same period the insurance losses have also fallen from £773 million to £555 million.
All of this has been achieved by an industry that works in partnership with the police to the benefit of society at large.
A move away from false alarms:
The intruder alarm industry has installed and maintained monitored systems for commercial and residential customers that need reassurance that they have reliable systems and at the same time provide the police with the knowledge that the likelihood of a false alarm is significantly reduced.
As a result the police forces are able to provide a service to the public that is appreciated by the community, gives them a positive image, and most importantly has helped to reduce the volume of burglaries significantly.
These powerful arguments are ones that the intruder alarm industry should be shouting about and moving away from the subject of false alarms. That was yesterday’s issue and we should be focusing on the very real and substantial benefits of a monitored intruder alarm.
Credits: The British Security Industry Association (BSIA) is the professional trade association of the UK security industry.