Sandy Springs Georgia recently enacted what many consider a drastic false alarm policy for homes and businesses throughout the municipality.

In news from the Marietta Daily Journal Online, after a year-long adjustment and preparation period, the city went live with its Verified Response policy that requires all alarm companies to “provide true, confirmed verification through audio, video or in-person confirmation on intrusion (burglar) alarm activations before calling 911.”

Critics claim that the policy could lead to an increase in crime, which reportedly happened in San Jose, California where the city decided to repeal their verified response policy in an effort to reverse the crime trend.

“We think requiring all alarms to be verified prior to police dispatch is not a good idea. We’ve seen this tried in other cities and not work out well,” Scott Hightower, president of the Georgia Electronic Life Safety & Systems Association in the MDJ story. The GLSA is an organization whose membership includes about 80 alarm companies in the state. “Most recently it was tried in San Jose, California, and they saw a significant increase in criminal activity and decided to roll back their ordinance that required verification,”

Proponents of the policy say that too much police time is wasted in responding to false alarms, most of which are caused by user error or equipment that has not been properly, tested, inspected, serviced and maintained.

The Sandy Springs PD published information explaining the shift to verified response and also pointing out what it called inaccuracies in security industry criticisms of the policy.

Norris is very familiar with all the best ways to avoid false alarms and has posted pointers for avoiding false alarms and helping to combat the nuisance that caused the verified response policy in Sandy Springs.

Drop Norris a line today to and talk with one of our friendly, caring, highly-skilled professionals. We’ll talk with you about setting up training, or test/inspection and service/maintenance plans to be sure you and your system are ready to help fight the false alarm problem.

What is Norris all about?

Norris, Inc.—a South Portland, Maine-based life-safety and security systems integrator with satellite offices in Bangor, Maine; Lee, New Hampshire; and Burlington, Vermont—was founded nearly 40 years ago by two brothers, Brad and Harty Norris. The brothers remain on the board of directors today and continue to help steer the enterprise toward its goal of advancing life-safety, security, and communications while striving to grow in its status as Northern New England’s leading systems integrator. Norris provides fully integrated life-safety and security solutions, comprising disparate systems including fire alarm, intrusion detection, access control, video surveillance, communications, and emergency notification and total systems integration via the Vigilance Systems Integration Engine and ENS. Want to become part of the Norris family? We’re hiring!