Police annoyed over false burglar alarms

Press, 23 August 1984, Page 6

Police annoyed over false burglar alarms

PA Wellington Noisy burglar and robbery alarms set off accidentally are annoying the police. Of the 35,745 alarm soundings which police responded to in 1983, between 96 and 98 per cent were false, the Commissioner of Police, Mr Ken Thompson, told the Security Industry Association’s annual meeting in Wellington. The level of false alarms in security systems was “far too high,” he said. The problem had to be corrected in the public interest, and if mutual confidence was to be maintained among those committed to crime prevention, he said. Mr Thompson said police needed “great diplomacy” in trying to pacify neighbours when a persistent alarm could not be silenced. "It has been known for normally placid citizens to resort to brute strength in an effort to silence the offending apparatus,” he said. The security industry “can and does play its part” in the prevention of crime, and undoubtedly the installation of sensible security devices could assist, said Mr Thompson. “The level of false alarms in security systems is far too high and this arises in

too many instances from faulty installation and faulty maintenance.” Mr Thompson said that in the seven months to July this year there had been 80 “raid alarms” in New Zealand. “The disturbing feature is that every one of these alarms was false, yet these systems are held out to be the answer to armed hold-ups.” There had been an upsurge in the installation of domestic alarms, and Mr Thompson said he was well

aware that many were purchased from retail stores and installed by home handymen. ’He sought the co-opera-tion of association members, when selling or installing domestic alarms where a monitoring service was not involved, to advise the owner of the “necessity” to .make specific arrangements with a neighbour or suitable keyholder, so that an activated alarm could be turned off within a reasonable space of time.