Politics, budgets, profits and losses, and other private/public sector issues aside, law enforcement and the electronic security industry share a common mission: serving in the best interests of public safety. And both contingencies agree almost universally they can more effectively accomplish that objective by combining their efforts. The 2011 Law Enforcement Security Industry Study cuts through the noise to reveal the current state of this critical relationship.
This research updates the landmark studies SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION and Police magazines first conducted in 2003 and again in 2006. As then, the results are aimed at truly understanding law enforcement’s perceptions and expectations of the security industry, and how both sides can best work together in partnership to minimize false dispatches, deter crime and make more apprehensions.
Although significant progress has been made in the five years since the last study, this relationship requires ongoing attention and nurturing to keep it strong.
In an outgrowth of the previous research, new questions have been incorporated that focus on maximizing the positive aspects and capabilities of more reliable burglar alarms, video surveillance and access control systems to better support law enforcement.
Nearly 1,200 police participated in the study, which for the first time also includes sheriffs (150 additional respondents) for a margin of error of approximately +2.9 percent. And in the interest of presenting an even more comprehensive vantage point, a further enhancement is the inclusion of questions posed to some 350 owners/operators of security systems installation and/or monitoring companies.
