More than 6,000 police dispatches are made annually to homes and business when sensors are tripped sending signals to alarm monitoring companies who dial 911 reporting an intrusion to the police. In general, the vast majority of these types of alerts, a percentage as high as 98% according to the U.S. Department of Justice, are false alarms. In an Opinionator piece published this morning on Berkeleyside, Pat Mapps and James Barter argue that Berkeley police resources would be better deployed on solving crimes, and they propose that the city looks at solutions to the false alarm problem that have been proven to work elsewhere.
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