Georgia and Tennessee Police Chiefs Adopt Enhanced Call Verification
“I don’t know a better way to free up officers to deal with Homeland Security issues,†said Lee Reese, past president of the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police. Reese is referring to enhanced call verification (ECV), which, with the help of the Security Industry Alarm Coalition (SIAC) has been adopted by leaders of the Georgia and Tennessee Associations of Chiefs of Police as part of a cooperative public safety initiative to reduce alarm dispatches.
Companies in states such as Colorado and California have already committed to implementing ECV, and more states will follow, said Stan Martin, executive director of SIAC. Martin said despite the fact that SIAC research has shown that dispatch rates over the past seven years have decreased 64 percent, to less than one law enforcement dispatch per system per year, false alarm rates need to drop even further to free law enforcement employees for more important issues. The SIAC figure is based on reports from alarm companies representing approximately 20 percent of systems monitored nationally.