“Progress” can be a loaded word. One person’s definition of “progress” might be another’s definition of “failure.” At SIAC, we’re continually focused on improving alarm management practices – for the security industry, so law enforcement can do its job more easily and to help communities protect their citizens in the most efficient way possible. That’s progress for the three pillars consistently engaged in dealing with alarm system issues in local jurisdictions.
That’s not the only way we define progress. We track the decline in inadvertent alarm activations. For example, if a city is seeing 12,000 dispatches per year for 10,000 systems, when we get our model ordinance enacted with good enforcement, we’d expect to see a drop down to 9,000 or less dispatches within the first year. That’s demonstrable results – progress.
SIAC purposefully is conservative in the estimates we make and provide to law enforcement. We don’t want to make promises we can’t keep. Instead, we want to demonstrate what can be done based on numbers that show progress in communities that implement the best practices we advocate for.
We’re not perfect, and the model we use to assist law enforcement and local governments is not going to provide the exact same results from town to town or city to city. But for the most part, when we show reductions in those unwanted alarm activations, we can comfortably predict that with similar provisions, and strong implementation and enforcement, that other communities will see similar results.
As advocates for the alarm industry, it’s important that we provide conservative estimates to our law enforcement partners. That’s critical for our credibility, and the trust necessary for “progress” to continue reducing unnecessary alarm activations in the years ahead.