The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is rolling out a new alarm system that it hopes will cut down on wasted time and tax dollars.
Sheriff Mike Williams said officers spend around 38,000 hours responding to false alarms in a year.
"We can equate that to say there are 18 policemen that ride around every year and do nothing but respond to false alarms," Williams said.
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A change was made to burglary and robbery ordinance code in October, but the city couldn’t get vendors.
"It's about efficiency, it's about safety and it's about protecting our community," Councilman Tommy Hazouri said.
The big change is that officers will only respond to a home or business alarm twice and after, you’ll be fined.
"Just think of all those calls and activities those officers could be participating in," Williams said.
Within the past six months, there have been close to 150 burglaries within a 2-mile radius of the Sheriff’s Office and the sheriff said the average response time for alarms is seven minutes.
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"We add more and more police officers every year because we've fallen behind in the numbers we should have in the force," Hazouri said.
The sheriff is urging anyone with a home or business alarm system to register within the next 90 days.
After the 7th false alarm, officers will only respond to panic or robbery calls.