Re: Commercial Alarm - help

[Nomen Nescio <nobody@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jackcsg said:

>Here's how simple the calculation is: The Police are notified to respond to
>a burglar alarm going off at xyz residence. Police arrive, find no sign of a
>break-in at the premise. This is logged as a "False Alarm". This information
>is collected all Year long. At the end of the year, they compare the actual
>calls for response, with ACTUAL crimes. Response vs. Crime.
>
>100% Response
>99% False Alarm
>1% Valid Crime
>
>If I'm wrong, show me a report from a responding authority having
>jurisdiction that states otherwise. "SHOW ME"

Yes, that's exactly my point.  The police are using an unfair statistic,
and they don't understand why it's unfair.

Judging alarm companies by the total number of false alarms they create:
that's fair.

Judging alarm companies by the average number of false alarms each system
causes:  that's even more fair.

Judging alarm companies by the ratio of false alarms to actual burglaries:
that's complete bullshit.  Alarm companies have no control over how many
burglary attempts there are.  If all the burglars decided to take the next
month off, the false alarm rate would be 100%.  If the burglars decide to
work extra hard and commit more crimes, the false alarm rate would actually
drop.   Would the lower percentage mean that alarms are working better?  Of
course not.

Alarm systems are electronic devices that have a certain failure rate, just
like any other piece of electronic equipment, and that failure rate is not
affected by the number of burglaries that are attempted.  This is just like
fire alarms.  The number of false fire alarms has nothing to do with the
number of fires.  I'll bet you'd find the percentage of fire alarms that
are false is also in the high nineties, simply because there are more and
more fire alarm systems and no corresponding increase in the number of
fires.

Trying to cut that false alarm percentage is a game the alarm companies can
never win.