Fayetteville False Alarm Calls Drop 44 Percent
By: Cassidy Hodges, KNWA-TV, Fayetteville & nwahomepage.com
Updated: March 19, 2013
FAYETTEVILLE, AR - 911 calls are down 44 percent in Fayetteville and police believe it's all because of an ordinance that fines people for false alarm calls.
The noise is non-stop at the police dispatch center. Each call, another emergency that officers need to investigate, leaving no room for false alarms.
"Whenever you're talking about 3800 alarms in a year's time frame. When you start totaling it up that's a lot of man hours," says Sgt. Craig Stout with the Fayetteville Police Department.
That was back in 2007, the department was overwhelmed with security system calls from people accidentally setting off their business or home alarms.
"The amount of alarms or time that we were spending on alarms had gotten to a point where it wasn't really cost effective," he says.
For each call, dispatchers have to send out at least two officers. So if it's a false alarm, they're wasting time and money.
The city enacted an ordinance, to fine people with an overactive alarm system.
"What we recommend now is called enhanced call verification, where in this day and age everyone has a cell phone, so perhaps the police department is the third or fourth call you make," says Sgt. Stout.
Citizens are allowed one false alarm, then the fines start rolling in from $75 dollars all the way up to $250.
"We haven't taken out the human factor and whenever possible we try to be as friendly as possible to the citizens," he says.
But now, the 911 logs are finally starting to look a lot different.
"We've reduced our call volume by about 44 percent," says Sgt. Stout.
Saving the city money, sparing man hours and cutting response time when real emergencies happen.
Click here to watch this report.
The noise is non-stop at the police dispatch center. Each call, another emergency that officers need to investigate, leaving no room for false alarms.
"Whenever you're talking about 3800 alarms in a year's time frame. When you start totaling it up that's a lot of man hours," says Sgt. Craig Stout with the Fayetteville Police Department.
That was back in 2007, the department was overwhelmed with security system calls from people accidentally setting off their business or home alarms.
"The amount of alarms or time that we were spending on alarms had gotten to a point where it wasn't really cost effective," he says.
For each call, dispatchers have to send out at least two officers. So if it's a false alarm, they're wasting time and money.
The city enacted an ordinance, to fine people with an overactive alarm system.
"What we recommend now is called enhanced call verification, where in this day and age everyone has a cell phone, so perhaps the police department is the third or fourth call you make," says Sgt. Stout.
Citizens are allowed one false alarm, then the fines start rolling in from $75 dollars all the way up to $250.
"We haven't taken out the human factor and whenever possible we try to be as friendly as possible to the citizens," he says.
But now, the 911 logs are finally starting to look a lot different.
"We've reduced our call volume by about 44 percent," says Sgt. Stout.
Saving the city money, sparing man hours and cutting response time when real emergencies happen.
Click here to watch this report.
