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Health & Fitness

Registering Your Alarm with Local Police Departments

A lot of metro Atlanta police departments are starting to intact false alarm fines in order to cut down on the amount of false alarms that are taking up police resources.  In 2012, the Atlanta Police Department responded to 65,000 alarm system calls, 95% of which were false alarms or alarms that were cancelled in route.  There are enough false alarms to keep 8 to 12 full-time police officers dedicated to just responding to false alarms.
The City of Atlanta along with most of the metro area have changed or added to their false alarm ordinances.  Now they are requiring you as the homeowner or business owner to register your monitored alarm system with the dispatching police department.  The process is very simple and only takes a couple of minutes.  Some jurisdictions have a website or a toll free telephone number you can call and others are going with a form that you print out from their website and mail in.  
The City of Marietta was one of the first police jurisdictions to put alarm registering into effect the results where almost immediate.  They recorded a 65% decrease in overall alarm calls from 2006 to the end of 2009.  This is attributed to homeowners becoming more aware of their systems and being more proactive in the upkeep which can cause the majority of false alarms.  
If you have an alarm system and are not sure if you are registered or even if you need to register the best place to start would be your local police department.  This is who you are registering your alarm with so they can give you the most information on how and why you are doing this.  You can also contact your alarm company which can always direct you to the right place.   

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