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,2 9 Today's debate: BURGLAR ALARMS With every alarm i Burglar alarm com- Jacksonville l . ou pa" panles sell you se. Even though man large Curl . But tempt to confirm burglar Y rage companies at tY .. Taxpayers provide it. alarms, police an= Why don't the companies pay? swer an average of two false alarms P Y• sys- tem Per year. with six freeb' Per By 2000 b much incentive to strai res, there s not generati u n�az systems could be solution, found in Seattlghten up. A better ng P to 40 million false alarms Year, according to best estimates. So let's do _some doomsday a homeowners for each false alms fines es arm and fines alarm companies if they don't try to math In v 1995, police in Dallas answered 134 arms first That improves account alarms, of which 132 ability and Puts sloppy operators at a corn- Say say responding m those ere false. s petitive disadvantage . the equivalent of 80 calls was At the other end Las Vegas Pull -time s police won't officers. By answer burglar alarms that measure, if notl0 all This Police won't at the end of the cent changes, taxpayers Policy runes its own fury could us Paying the equivalent of 24,242 olffcers just to h set of worries but has effectively fimited public expense with swer false alarms. an- Ehcealready under way by local lead- no re port ed loss of public safety. Police still respond places departments and the security in- dustry may reduce that p�tpathe dbiufference Cities like Philadelphia which issues number. But even if it can be cut drain 50%, remainder con- stitutes agiant drain of alarm per - mits, also revoke them. Others a Toronto, for one — stop responding pu publi c resources. The alarm industry (1996 revenues: $11 billion) sells security. But to chronic of- fenders. Elsewhere, police give burglar alarms a low priority. The the public actual- IY Provides it by paying the police who an best solution no doubt mixes all these ideas, and others that swer the calls. That massive subsidy has helped the industry sign stress better training of installers and better education of consumers up almost 24 mil- lion homes i a less than 30 years. Despite that growth . On balance, however, the remedy must feature fines for consumers — and the drag it P) on local resources al efforts to im- Pose accountability for false alarms and companies alike that are stiff enough to cover the cost of responding to false alarms. Also key: Also are feeble. Although many cities im- pose fines, the fines the. mostly ability to cut off offenders if contin- ue. Taxpayers should can be Ugh — in Do- ver, N.H., $25 per false call . And, often be happy to pay when the police answer real emergencies. cit- ies allow a number offree false alarms — in They should be angry that they also pay for the 95% of all burglar alarms that are false.