Home Security Needn’t Be So Alarming
Looking crazed and vicious, the man is pictured breaking through a door. The message is it’s a jungle out there, such creeps hit one in four homes, and maybe yours. The pitch: for $395, ADT Security Systems will help “keep him out.”
Residential security is the fastest-growing segment of a young industry. Eighty percent of operating security systems were installed in the 1980s, according to the Santa Monica-based Security Industry Assn. Residential work provided perhaps $2.5 billion of last year’s $8.4-billion industry revenue, estimates STAT Resources, a Brookline, Mass., market research firm.
Alarm systems are not the only--or even the best--defense against the jungle out there. But they sound good.
Residential burglary is certainly a problem, whether one considers the 5 million household burglaries reported annually or the National Crime Prevention Council’s prediction that in a 20-year period, seven out of 10 households will be burglarized at least once. More take place in summer, and in the daytime. Many involve drug users, who are more hurried, less clever and less methodical than professional burglars.
Someone was home in only one of eight household burglaries; in a third of those, the burglar got violent. And yes, homes without alarms are more likely to be hit.
In recent years, household alarm systems became more readily available and cheaper, thanks to new modular systems and sensors that can be produced and installed faster and easier. Small contractors jumped in; large national companies serving government and industry started residential divisions.
The result is a field of variable sophistication and commitment. The nationals boast longevity and Fortune 500 customers. The locals advertise endorsements from stores, stars, or in one case (this in Los Angeles), both the police chief and a former burglar--the one against his wishes, the other under who knows what arrangements.
Most offer a combination of on-site triggers and remote responses. Alarms may be set off by someone pushing a manual “panic” button or disturbing magnetic contacts on doors and windows (“perimeter” alarms), or moving across the field of some kind of sensor. The alarm sounds in the house, the neighborhood, the local police station or a monitoring station, where someone calls the police or dispatches a private guard.
Unfortunately, these alarms sound too often: The false alarm rate is 95%, 97%, even 98%. Some are tripped by forgetful residents. Some are set off by pets, or rattling windows, or airplanes passing overhead, or sun shining into the path of a sensor. Some are just poorly installed.
Whatever, “the assumption is that most of the alarms are false,” says Robert McCrie, editor of Security Letter and assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. As a result, busy police stations no longer welcome direct hook-ups, many issue fines for repeat false alarms, and some are slow to respond even when a security company has checked that no one’s home.
Neighbors are probably even more annoyed and unresponsive, and even owners seem to have a short fuse. One study found that half the residential systems installed are turned off after a month.
Along with false alarms, the systems foster “a false sense of security,” says Jean O’Neil, director of research and policy analysis at the National Crime Prevention Council in Washington. Homeowners may leave their house dark, surround it with high shrubbery, even open doors and windows. Some more readily leave children home alone, because “we have an alarm system.”
Consumers who don’t buy alarm systems aren’t necessarily at the mercy of thugs. Since almost any system can be circumvented by a true professional, given enough time, the goal is simply to “to make your residence a less attractive target,” says O’Neil, for both amateurs and professionals.
With that goal, there are many possibilities, starting with good locks, and their regular usage: in 20% to 50% of residential burglaries, the burglar enters through an unlocked door or window. Building and landscape design can prohibit unobserved entry. Lights and noise can suggest that someone is home (lamps on, radios playing) or discourage entry (dogs barking, outside floodlights).
Neighbors who are home and watchful are the most help, whether they discourage entry or just report it, whether they see intruders or hear an alarm. In most communities, police will help set up “neighborhood watch” plans--more consciousness-raising than organization, but effective. “We’ve seen them cut burglaries 20%, 30%, even 40%,” says O’Neil.
Alarms that ring elsewhere are most useful when homeowners are gone a lot or the home and contents are so attractive that thieves would take more chances. Also, there may be no neighbors--either because the dwelling is isolated or the people are isolated, their neighbors all strangers.
Indeed, turning to alarms first, not last, may be a symptom of today’s urban isolation. Security companies are only filling a gap, as they will when they add monitor features for latchkey children, and medical alert functions for elderly people living alone. But no one can expect to replace families, friends and neighbors without sounding false alarms.
