What is Priority Response?
Video-verified alarms have only been on the mainstream market for a handful of years. After they started showing up more frequently a few years ago, law enforcement began to see how unique and beneficial they really were. Officers around the country, such as Dye, decided to get behind Priority Response. Now, his station has a designated email account where security companies can push their live video feeds so that he can dispatch an officer almost immediately.
The wireless, magnetic devices are equipped with motion sensors. In the event that a burglar sets off an alarm, the device begins a video feed that captures the perp on camera. When the security company sees this, they dispatch the local police department, who then sends officers to the site immediately.
According to Jim Hughes, secretary of the North Texas Crime Commission, the speed at which officers are dispatched with video-verified alarms is unparalleled.
“I know a couple of cities that use priority response who say if you’ve got a video alarm, we’re going to treat that different,” said Hughes. “We’re going to treat that as a crime in progress, which means lights and sirens.”
With traditional alarm systems, the apprehension rate is just around 1 percent. And while video-verified alarms haven’t been on the market long enough to collect substantial data, Dye predicts that his apprehension rate in North Texas is at least 25 percent, if not higher. In Detroit Public Schools, cops have seen a 70 percent apprehension rate and in 2012, the Sheriff ’s Department in Los Angeles reported a less than one percent apprehension rate from traditional alarms versus a 19 percent apprehension rate from video-verified alarms.
In addition to a better apprehension rate, time of officer arrival is critical. In Boston, a police response from a traditional alarm elicited a 21 minute arrival time. With Priority Response, the cops showed up in 7:38 minutes. In Salinas, Calif., a typical alarm response resulted in the cops arriving 39:25 minutes later, while a video-verified one resulted in a 2:54 minute arrival time. That’s a difference of more than 35 minutes.