AIREF Study Shows 65% of Voters Do Not Support Verified Response
The Alarm Industry Research & Educational Foundation (AIREF) announces that 65 percent of registered voters in one of the first cities to adopt verified response disapprove of its use and would vote politicians who support it out. The study, performed on behalf of AIREF by Bisconti Research Inc. of Washington, D.C., was released in Salt Lake City on Sept. 15.
Bisconti Research, a full-service public opinion and communications research company, found widespread disapproval of the city’s verified response ordinance. According to AIREF, the Salt Lake City ordinance in question, which took effect in Dec. 2000, mandates that police only respond to burglar alarms if someone on the scene can actually verify criminal activity.
“Our survey shows that 80 percent of Salt Lake City voters are concerned about crime in the city, so the idea that police respond to alarms only if someone at the scene can verify a crime caused concern among all demographic groups,” says Ann Stouffer Bisconti, president of Bisconti Research. “Business owners disapproved the most, with 77 percent reporting they were against the law.”
According to AIREF, only 20 percent of registered voters who were surveyed actually know that the ordinance in question exists. The survey also revealed that only 28 percent approved. Those who strongly disapproved outnumbered those who do strongly approve by a factor of 4 to 1, or 33 percent to 8 percent.
Sixty percent of those surveyed said that they would vote for a political candidate who would oppose the continuation of this controversial and largely opposed ordinance while 20 percent would vote for a candidate who says they would maintain the ordinance as it currently reads with 21 percent not sure.
For more information on the Salt Lake City survey, go to AIREF’s Web site at www.airef.org.
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