It’s one of the biggest issues facing local municipalities and provincial governments across Canada – the high cost of providing public safety and security through policing. Policing, whether managed through local forces or outsourced to larger organizations like the RCMP, is expensive and is a big part of public budgets everywhere.
This is happening at a time when public security is receiving much more attention; cyber crime, international crime rings, gang crime, smuggling, fraud networks, and terrorism. Police forces are put in the unenviable position of needing to do more work with less funding.
The largest draws on police time is answering false alarms. It’s estimated that alarms for break-ins and theft can make up 20% of calls to police services. And here’s the real problem - over 97% of the alarm calls to police are false alarms … costing major cities over $12 million per year ... what a waste!
Police units don’t have the time to respond to false alarms. It’s clearly a waste of vital resources and taxpayers dollars.
If all false alarms could be eliminated tomorrow, the police would gain time to work on real issues that are impacting your community. Could the police use a 20% increase in manpower - you bet they could!