December 20th, 2008
Yesterday I pointed out a recent editorial in my local paper about a the murder of the sister of a friend of mine. The editorial suggested that GPS tethers and home alarms were some of the “better tools” needed to help enforce restraining orders. I agree in the sense that such tools have their uses and that they might strengthen the value of a personal protection order, but I also want to stress that such tools don’t actually provide any real protection.
Hell in a Handbasket wrote an excellent response about home alarm systems and how they’re portrayed as lifesavers. I suggest you go check it out.
He says home alarms are “not exactly useless,” and he’s exactly right. They certainly have some value, and they may even do the trick against random burglars. Also, as he points out, they can provide a certain level of protection against crime and fire for your property while you are away from it. They are certainly something that should be considered by any homeowner. However, it’s important to realize that such devices don’t actually “protect” anyone in the sense of making them safe from danger.
When it comes to home security, I do think a lot of passive home defenses are worthwhile for general security. Locked doors, motion-detecting outdoor lighting, and a dog are all very helpful against random intruders.
The difference that most people overlook, though, is that those sorts of things are unlikely to affect a criminal who has intentionally targeted a home. Those defenses are still helpful against a determined invader, as they make the perp work harder to get where he wants to, but some loser hell-bent on murder isn’t going to let them stop him.
Good home defenses are layered. But there has to be last-ditch layer. If the last-ditch layer is “hope the cops arrive in time,” you’re going to let down far too often.
Tags: MI
December 20th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Let’s not forget that police officers and police departments cannot be sued for failing to prevent a crime or apprehend a lawbreaker. A protection order is only worth the paper it’s printed on.
December 21st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’ll preface this by saying I’ve spend a good portion of my working career responding to home alarm systems (as an UNARMED private security guard in a vehicle authorized to drive no faster than the posted limit and specifically charged to “observe and report” not to intervene if something is found amiss – sound reassuring? Makes you wonder if the customer is aware of what they’re paying for doesn’t it?), installing those systems and have even worked in the stations that monitor them.
The commercials like the ones that James posted over at Hell in a Handbasket make me gag. I’ve listened to the statistics (a home with a burglary alarm system is 10 times less likely to be broken into than one without…but at the same time only one in ten homes have a burglary alarm, so doesn’t that actually mean that your odds remain exactly even?), and I’ve attended numerous locations where the alarm system was either ignored by the burglars or compromised prior to entry (a low end alarm system is entirely reliant on your home phone, which typically is accessible from outside the home – snip snip).
The old digital dialers are showing their age in this fast paced world of call waiting and invisible answering machines. What that commercial should have shown was an alarm operator dialing the residence only to be immediately shunted to their voicemail as the alarm system was still monopolizing the phone line to report the alarm signals to the monitoring station, resulting in a message being left and another “probable false alarm” being reporting to the responding authority (either the police, private security or a neighbor or relative). Critical minutes lost in the shuffle of paper from one organization to another before anyone actually starts driving toward the residence.
These systems serve a valuable role. They limit the loss of your personal possessions by reducing the amount of time the bad guys can spend on the ground during their burglary. With a professionally installed burg system with cellular backup the bady guys know they have only a few minutes before the odds of someone arriving increase drastically, they grab some easily found valuables and scram. They don’t have the time to explore your home or compromise hardened storage.
For protecting people the dynamics are entirely different. A burglar would prefer not to encounter anyone during the commission of the offence. Protection against a burglar is not protection against a rapist or assailant, and its the false sense of security that concerns me most about this sort of thing.
Someone intent on ending your life is not going to be overly concerned that a security guard may be driving up to your house 20 minutes after the alarm goes off, or that a police officer may be attending your alarm after three other false ones so far that shift.
December 21st, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I am a retired Police Officer with 31 years of service. In those years many, many of my calls were to alarms (many of them false as “mugwug” says), but many of them were the real thing, and generally we would arive after the bad guy had left. This wasn’t because we dragged our feet or had to finish that last donut first. It simply was a fact that that most times the Police are scattered so thin that it takes time to get there (please remember that the next time you see an emergency vehicle trying to work it’s way through a line of cars with oncoming traffic). Many calls were also “Domestic” in nature, meaning husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, X-this or that. Many times with restraining orders in place (yes we will arrest the offender when we get there, but first we have to get there). My wife and I live 45 miles from the near town of any size. We live in a log cabin on several acres of forrested land in the wilds of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We use battery backups and a generator, cell phones and audio alarms, as well as motion detector lights (which are generally tripped by wildlife). Both of us know we are at least a half hour away from any type of Police protection if we are lucky enough to have a police car traveling the one State Highway that passes near us. For those reasons we own, know how use, and carry handguns. The proper permits to carry are not hard to get if you have a clean record and show that you can both use the weapon safely and know the law in it’s use. We don’t fear the wild animals (four legged anyway)
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I’ve broken it down for people before real simple-like:
“Someone who wants to get in your house, will”.
After that, it gets a little more abstract but still pretty simple. “If you’re unarmed once they’re in, your only plan is hope”:
-You hope they don’t hurt you or your family.
-You hope you can call for help.
-You hope the help comes in time.
And then wrap up with the ol’ “hope is not a plan”.
But folks around here don’t take any of that stuff seriously, by and large. They are too willing to depend exclusively on agents of the state to look after them.
December 22nd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
[...] wrote about protection orders and other feel goodness last [...]
December 29th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
People forget that there are people who do not give a sh*t and will continue the attack no matter the alarm. They will probably also force victim to shut off the alarms and tell and anyone responding that everything is alright. Remember the famous saying “Peace in our time” and Hitler went on and stomped on Europe.