Success Story
Miami-Dade Police Department
Honorable Mention 2004 FARA Public Safety False Alarm Achievement Award
Nominated By: Patty Bimonte, Miami-Dade Police Department
Rationale: On January 1, 2002, Miami-Dade County Ordinance 21-276 became effective. This Ordinance requires all residences and businesses within unincorporated Miami-Dade County to register their working burglar alarm systems with the Miami-Dade police Department (MDPD) and to pay a $25 registration fee.
The Ordinance also provides for accruing penalties for violations. Lieutenant Garrison and Sergeant Bimonte were both assigned to the FAEU shortly before the Ordinance went into effect, and were charged with the administration and enforcement of the Ordinance.
Alarm legislation was adopted because of concerns over law enforcement safety and to eliminate the misuse of their resources. MDPD immediately recognized the need for strict enforcement of the Ordinance as well as a need for education of citizens concerning the ramifications of false burglar alarm activations. False alarm calls had steadily been rising in Miami-Dade County for a number of years. In 2001, MDPD officers responded to 130,485 burglar alarm calls. Of those, approximately 98% were false signals. During the past two years MDPD false alarm dispatches have been reduced by 37%, to a total of 81,240 calls in 2003. This reduction has saved the MDPD over $2.4 million in revenue and almost 25,000 man-hours by not responding to nuisance calls.
The primary commitment of the FAEU is to reduce the number of false alarms the MDPD responds to so that officers can concentrate on higher priority calls for service.
- Lieutenant Garrison and Sergeant Bimonte educate the citizens of Miami-Dade County at Citizen Advisory Committee and homeowners association meetings.
- Additionally, a MDPD FAEU web page was designed through which citizens can download educational information and the annual registration card.
- Through such education the number of false alarms in Miami-Dade County has been and will continue to be reduced.
- The supervisors also proposed the formation of a “Burglar Alarm Response Squad” and were granted a Law Enforcement Trust Fund Grant to begin this pilot project. The program operated with a multi-prong effort, with the focus being a squad of four officers who would respond only to burglar alarm calls. Special rolls call training was given to the officers assigned to the detail, with the emphasis on speedier dispatch and response to alarm calls, education of citizens, and swifter response time to other calls for service by other district officers. The officers who attended these roll calls were equipped with informational brochures and the knowledge to instruct citizens on how to reduce the number of false incidents. They were also given a list of “most frequent offenders” within their areas, and instructed to make efforts to contact these citizens to offer educational information concerning false alarm reduction during times when there were no alarm calls. During the sixteen weeks that the detail operated, the number of false burglar alarm calls in the pilot area was decreased by 18% over the same time period in the previous year. More importantly, the project fostered positive citizen reaction on several levels:
- The response time for burglar alarm calls was reduced and response time for other calls for service was also reduced. The education received by citizens on ways to reduce the number of false alarms benefited both the Department and the community.
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