This guide addresses the problem of misuse and abuse of 911.† It begins by describing the problem and its scope. It then identifies a series of questions to help you analyze your local problem, and discusses potential responses to it.
† The equivalent U.K. emergency number is 999.
There is little evaluative research on 911 misuse and abuse. The responses suggested are based on sound problem oriented policing principles, but as new phone technology poses additional challenges, some responses have yet to be tested. Thus, this guide is mainly intended to describe an urgent problem and encourage police agencies to analyze and address it.
Misuse and abuse of 911 shares some similarities with the problems listed below, which require their own analysis and response. This guide does not address these problems:
For the purposes of this guide, 911 misuse and abuse is divided into two categories: unintentional and intentional calls.† Each category contains different types of 911 misuse and abuse calls, as described below. While there are no national surveys detailing the full extent of 911 misuse and abuse, estimates from various organizations and agencies suggest the problem is widespread in the United States and elsewhere. Some of the particulars regarding the calls may vary depending on local circumstances.
† One reason for using these categories is that some police agencies already do so in classifying 911 misuse and abuse calls. A second reason is that it immediately identifies the purpose for the call; however, one must look further to determine if calls are a misuse or abuse of 911.
Unintentional calls occur when a person or phone inadvertently dials 911. This category includes phantom wireless calls, and misdials and hang-up calls.
Phantom wireless calls are a documented problem in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, although other countries where wireless phones are extensively used probably also experience this problem since wireless systems are similar, despite location. Such calls occur for the following reasons:
† When their batteries are low, some phones start randomly dialing numbers, eventually dialing 911. The call goes through without pressing the "send" button.
The National Emergency Number Association reports that phantom wireless calls account for between 25 and 70 percent of all 911 calls in some U.S. communities. The California Highway Patrol (currently the handler of nearly all California wireless 911 calls) estimates that between 1.8 million and 3.6 million of the 6 million wireless 911 calls it receives annually are phantom. U.K. police estimate they receive 11,000 phantom wireless calls per day to their 999 emergency number. The wide data variations highlight the need for further research to pinpoint the scale of the problem.
However, the problem is already serious enough to suggest that ignoring it could have severe ramifications for police and legitimate 911 callers.
Of all the 911 misuse and abuse problems this guide addresses, phantom wireless calls will show the quickest increase, unless addressed. The U.S. 911 system handles 500,000 calls daily, or about 183 million annually.1 One in four calls are from wireless phones, a tenfold increase since 1991.2 In the next five years, the number of wireless 911 calls is expected to double from the current 46 million per year3 to 92 million annually, potentially exacerbating an already significant phantom call problem.††
†† As wireless carriers move into Enhanced 911, Phase II, 911 centers will be able to locate wireless callers. However, since so many wireless 911 calls are unintentional, implementing Phase II will be a less important lifesaving measure than addressing the current problem of phantom calls, since they prolong the time it takes for dispatchers to respond to other calls.
Misdials and hang-up calls are another 911 problem. Police suspect that many of these calls occur when callers misdial area codes similar to 911.† Others result from misdialing of the international access number—011. In addition, business Centrex and fax users sometimes dial 9 to get an outside line, when their phone systems do not require doing so, if the caller then dials a number starting with 1 and depresses 1 again by accident, the system dials 911 (thus 911 operators sometimes hear fax static on the line). In 2000, the Pinellas County, Florida, Emergency Communications Center received 20,646 misdials, accounting for 4 percent of all its 911 calls.†† In Loves Park, Illinois, 3 percent of the 911 calls received in 2000 resulted from area code, international access number and Centrex misdials.
† Such area codes include those for Wilmington, N.C. (910); Savannah, Ga. (912); Kansas City, Kan. (913); Westchester County, N.Y. (914); El Paso, Texas (915); Sacramento, Calif. (916); some parts of New York City (917); Tulsa, Okla. (918); and Raleigh, N.C. (919).
†† The Pinellas County 911 coordinator collects data on all 911 calls and tracks year-to-year increases in different types of calls, such as misdials and hang-ups.
It is suspected that many misdials end up as hang-up calls, once the callers realize their mistake. Agencies that have examined hang-up calls report that a majority are due to caller misdialing (rather than prank calls or hang-ups for other reasons). Many agencies instruct citizens not to hang up if they misdial 911. If a caller hangs up, many agencies conduct callbacks or dispatch officers to determine if a police or medical emergency exists.
The number of 911 wireless misdials and hang-ups is impossible to pin down without caller ID, which would allow for callbacks to determine the cause. However, without significant improvements, wireless caller location information will tax the resources of many 911 centers, unless the phantom call problem is resolved.
Callers sometimes deliberately, but inappropriately, dial 911. Such intentional calls fall under several distinct categories.
Nonemergency calls often constitute a large portion of all 911 calls.† Callers sometimes phone about an incident—albeit not an emergency—that requires police attention (e.g., the caller's car was broken into the previous night, or the caller has been involved in a noninjury vehicle accident). Others call 911 to ask about non-police-related matters (e.g., the time of a football game, the directions to a local event, the exact time of day, or the time of garbage pick-ups). In addition, because wireless carriers do not charge for 911 calls, cell phone users sometimes call 911 and ask the dispatcher to transfer their call to a non-police number, to avoid paying for it. At least one police agency found that it was their own off-duty personnel who abused 911 in this way.
† For example, in 2000, 40 percent of the 911 calls in Jefferson County, Ky., were nonemergencies (Tangonan 2000). In Floyd County, Ind., nearly half the monthly 911 calls are nonemergencies (Tangonan 2000). In 2001, the San Diego Sheriff's Department reported that more than half of its 911 calls were frivolous (Ma 2001).
People sometimes call 911 to falsely claim an emergency or to deliberately hang up. Most agencies do not keep separate totals on the number of prank calls, so it is unclear how significant a problem this is in the United States. Some of these calls are referred to, in policing circles, as children "playing on the phone." These calls generally come from private homes or pay phones—particularly pay phones easily accessible to teens and children (such as in or near malls, bowling alleys, or schools). In some of the more extreme cases, students falsely claim to have planted a bomb in a school. Doing so is a quick way to anonymously force the immediate evacuation of the school and cessation of classes.††
†† Some students use this tactic to avoid and postpone an academic test for which they are unprepared. For some of the same reasons, students sometimes pull school fire alarms.
A subcategory of prank calls is diversionary calls. A caller dials 911 to send the police to a location where no emergency has occurred, diverting them away from the caller's criminal activity. During the 1990s, when open-air drug markets were at a peak in the United States, officers frequently noted such calls and their suspicions that drug dealers were behind them. There are only a few ways to determine if a call is diversionary: if the caller admits it; if someone informs on the caller; or if the dispatcher or police compare the caller's location with that of the alleged emergency, to determine if the caller could plausibly claim an emergency at the called in location.
The difference between "playing on the phone" calls and diversionary calls lies in the motives behind them. Those who "play on the phone" (but do not immediately hang up) typically want to see the police respond, so they are unlikely to send the police to an area not visible to them. Diversionary callers want the opposite result. (Examples of police responses to both types of calls are provided later in this guide.)
Sometimes 911 callers intentionally exaggerate the seriousness of an emergency to get a quicker police response (although it is unclear how extensive this problem is). For example, a caller may falsely report "shots fired" when calling about a dispute or assault. Such 911 misuse is difficult to prove because the caller might simply claim, for instance, that he or she heard shots but did not actually see a gun fired. In other words, the caller knows there is enough room for "caller error" that he or she cannot be charged (or prosecuted) for the exaggerated 911 call.
Some 911 callers, over a series of months or years, repeatedly report an emergency, yet the police never find any evidence of one. The calls are not pranks, and they do not neatly fit into the exaggerated emergency category. They are typically made by the live-alone elderly or mentally ill. Some callers suffer from delusions, actually believing an emergency is occurring; others are often simply seeking company, perhaps not realizing the public expense of their calls and the accident-injury risks involved in officers responding to high priority dispatch calls. The fact that these callers commonly claim an intruder is in their yard or house perhaps suggests a rational manipulation of 911 and of police services.
The information provided above is only a generalized description of 911 misuse and abuse. You must combine the basic facts with a more specific understanding of your local problem. Carefully analyzing your problem will help you design a more effective response strategy.
The following are some critical questions you should ask in analyzing your particular 911 misuse and abuse problem, even if the answers are not always readily available. To accurately assess the magnitude of the problem, you may find that you must refine how your dispatch center records certain call types. Your answers to these and other questions will help you choose the most appropriate set of responses later on.
† Police communications centers use nature codes to classify incoming 911 calls.
†† The Loves Park 911 center determined, through analysis, that an increase in landline hang-ups between 1993 and 1994 was due to their phone company's switching all city calls, other than those to 911, from analogue to digital. (With analogue calls, there is a pause before the phone rings.) Many 911 callers, now accustomed to hearing an immediate ring, were assuming the pause meant their call did not go through, and were hanging up before a 911 operator answered. The 911 center's supervisor asked the phone company to replace the pause with a false ring, and 911 hang-ups subsequently dropped to previous levels.
† Many local and state laws that address 911 misuse and abuse may require revision to cover all aspects of the problem.
†† For example, the Framingham, Mass. Police Department's website (http://framinghampd.org/) contains this message: "If you dial 911 by accident, do not hang up the phone, all hang-ups on 911 must have police and or fire dispatched to the location to check on the call. Accidents happen, stay on and tell the operator it was an error."
Measurement allows you to determine to what degree your efforts have succeeded, and suggests how you might modify your responses if they are not producing the intended results. You should take measures of your problem before you implement responses, to determine how serious the problem is, and after you implement them, to determine whether they have been effective. (For more detailed guidance on measuring effectiveness, see the companion guide to this series, Assessing Responses to Problems: An Introductory Guide for Police Problem-Solvers.)
The following are potentially useful measures of the effectiveness of responses to 911 misuse and abuse:
Your analysis of your local problem should give you a better understanding of the factors contributing to it. Once you have analyzed your local problem and established a baseline for measuring effectiveness, you should consider possible responses to address the problem.
There is no nationally recognized protocol to address 911 misuse and abuse. Rather, there is a patchwork of federal, local and private responses. They are detailed below, along with other suggested responses, to provide a foundation of ideas for addressing your particular problem. Some forms of the problem—such as phantom wireless calls—must be addressed at the federal level, but this will occur only if local agencies combine their efforts to highlight the extent of the problem. Conversely, landline 911 problems are best addressed at the local level. It is critical that you tailor these responses to local circumstances, and that you can justify each response based on reliable analysis. In most cases, an effective strategy will involve implementing several different responses. Police responses alone are seldom effective in sufficiently reducing or solving the problem. Do not limit yourself to considering what police can do; give careful consideration to who else in your community shares responsibility for the problem and can help police better respond to it.
† For example, see the Stop Accidental Calls website at www.StopAccidentalCalls.com.
† For additional information on this initiative, contact Diane Chupinski at dchupinski@chp.ca.gov.
During the five-week trial, the average waiting time for a dispatcher to answer a 911 call dropped from 93 seconds to eight seconds. However, lawyers for one of the wireless carriers objected, suggesting they might sue, and representatives of the deaf community asserted that the system was not friendly to the community's needs.†† The Highway Patrol ultimately abandoned the project.†† Telecommunications devices for the deaf, commonly referred to as TTY, send out certain tones that 911 center computers recognize, allowing for written responses. However, these devices cannot be used with wireless phones.
The United Kingdom has instituted a similar initiative, dubbed "Silent Solution." Cellular calls are answered with an automated message: "If you require any of the emergency services, press 5 on your keypad two times now." If the caller does not do so, the recording resumes: "Nothing has been heard. Operator, please release the line." If the caller presses 55, the automated attendant immediately reroutes the call to the police on the highest-priority line, and it is the next to be answered.6 Using this system, U.K. emergency communications officials discovered that of the more than 14,000 cellular calls to 999 per day, only about 25 are true emergencies.
If wireless carriers remain unresponsive to the FCC's request, and to police requests for reform, police agencies could use a funneled phantom call system. This approach requires some refinement to address the deaf community's needs. In addition, it would be wise (although difficult) to prenotify the area's wireless users about the system. There is a slight risk that a wireless caller in a life-threatening situation—such as someone being attacked—could not respond, and the call would be terminated. However, this risk also exists when no one responds to a 911 hang-up from a pay phone call, and a number of police agencies no longer dispatch officers to such calls.
Several years ago, officials from the California Highway Patrol and the Reno, Nevada, Police Department separately met with carriers whose phones made phantom calls. Several carriers changed their handset designs. Some agreed to stop preprogramming their phones to autodial 911; however, many have not done so. The Highway Patrol had greater success than the Reno police. Only one carrier agreed to meet with Reno officials to discuss the issue, and that carrier did not have the largest share of Reno's wireless market. Handset manufacturers rejected the idea of a product recall, and phone owners can still program their phones to autodial 911. The yearly increase in wireless users, coupled with the use of older phones that make phantom calls, has offset any gains achieved by the few manufacturers who no longer preprogram phones.
A more coordinated effort involving national police organizations and the FCC may be needed to effectively address the problem.
† Putting 911 on speed dial increases the risk of misdials due to accidental pressing of the button.
†† Some people mistakenly dial 911 instead of 011 (the international access code) when phoning someone in a foreign country.
††† Several years ago, a police agency employed a clown to visit elementary schools to teach children how to use 911 correctly. Thereafter, some children called 911 to speak to the clown.
Pinellas County employs a 911 public educator to address the misuse and abuse problems arising from its more than 500,000 annual 911 calls. Misdials and hang-ups accounted for over 10 percent of all 911 calls. The educator found, from a study in one of the county's cities, that children were responsible for only 10 percent of the misdials and hang-up calls, so efforts were geared toward adults. The initiative reduced the average annual number of misdials and hang-up calls by more than 12,000 over a three-year period.††††
†††† For more information about Pinellas County 911 and the public educator's role, contact ed911@aol.com.
† In Marion County, Mo., first-time violators receive a letter describing the call, as well as information on what constitutes a true emergency. Second-time violators are informed that they will face prosecution if another false or nonemergency call occurs; the county's prosecuting attorney has agreed to follow through in such cases.
In 1994, San Diego police Officers Patti Clayton, Bob Smith and Miguel Flores, and Sgts. David Contreras and Rudy Tai, noticed that a high volume of 911 hang-up calls were coming from pay phones in the 700 block of East San Ysidro Boulevard, in the city's Southern Division. This area abuts Mexico and has the busiest border crossing in the world—more than 70,000 vehicles and pedestrians cross during an average day. Due to this heavy border traffic, officers were sometimes spending over an hour responding to the calls, invariably finding no reason for them.
Officer Clayton surveilled the 20 pay phones on the block, phones belonging to six different owners. She also spoke with community members, taxi and bus drivers, and business owners, and determined three main causes for the hangups:
The police team met with business owners, alerting them to the severity of the problem. The owners, realizing that police were being diverted from crime-ridden areas to respond to the false calls, agreed to remove 10 of the phones and to relocate several others. Officer Clayton installed signs above the phones that read, "It is a crime to dial 911 to make a false police report." With the owners' consent, she also posted "no loitering" signs next to the phones. The sign messages are in both English and Spanish.
To address Mexican travelers' misdialing, the team asked the phone manufacturer to install differently shaped 9 keys in the phones, but this proved cost-prohibitive. As an alternative, Officer Clayton painted all the 9 keys red, and repainted them weekly to make up for wear and tear.
As a result of the team's efforts, the number of 911 calls from the phones dropped by 50 percent. The initiative also resulted in lower response times to other calls.
By analyzing 911 hot-spot data, St. Petersburg, Florida, police Sergeant Charles Burnette determined that pay phones near a convenience store had accounted for 71 hang-up or "playing on the phone" calls over a five-year period. The call times coincided with the time students were released from school. Sgt. Burnette noted that foliage blocked natural surveillance of the phones, and that the phones were unlit, compounding the problem. He met with store management, who agreed to monitor the phones,† and asked city staff to trim the obstructing foliage and install lights by the phones. As a result of this initiative, the false calls stopped.
† The convenience store owner initially had the phones placed on the property's perimeter, rather than near the store's entrance, to discourage loitering. However, the phones' remoteness, along with the obstructing foliage, prevented the staff from monitoring them.
Sgt. Burnette reviewed other pay phone hot-spots and during his analysis discovered that five percent of all of St. Petersburg's 911 calls were either hang-up or "playing on the phone" calls. Pay phone calls appeared to account for some of the problem. Because the calls did not cluster solely around student release times, Sgt. Burnette surmised that adults were also responsible. He recommended CPTED surveys of pay phones and developed an ordinance requiring that phones be maintained to CPTED standards. The ordinance also requires that signs notifying callers of the penalties for 911 misuse be posted near pay phones, and provides a fine structure for phone owners who violate the ordinance. At the time of this writing, the ordinance remains under consideration.
Dispatch Monthly Magazine. Nextel’s campaign to stop accidental wireless 911 calls. — http://www.911dispatch.com
There are a number of Herman Goldstein Award submissions related to 911 systems, which can be accessed through our search system.
White County Illinois. An ordinance to adopt penalty guidelines for the abuse of the 911 emergency telephone system within White County, Illinois. — http://www.911dispatch.com
Mazerolle, L., D. Rogan, J. Frank, et al. (2003). Managing citizen calls to the police: An assessment of non-emergency call systems. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice. — http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/grants/199060.pdf
The table below summarizes the responses to misuse and abuse of 911, the mechanism by which they are intended to work, the conditions under which they ought to work best, and some factors you should consider before implementing a particular response. It is critical that you tailor responses to local circumstances, and that you can justify each response based on reliable analysis. In most cases, an effective strategy will involve implementing several different responses. Law enforcement responses alone are seldom effective in reducing or solving the problem.
| Responses to Phantom Wireless 911 Calls | ||||
| # | Response | How It Works | Works Best If... | Considerations |
| 1 | Requiring manufacturers to redesign wireless phones | Makes phones less susceptible to phantom calls | …police agencies, police chief and sheriff organizations, NENA, and other interested parties collaborate to petition the FCC using accurate, recent data | Financial costs to the wireless industry may be significant |
| 2 | Recalling preprogrammed wireless phones | Addresses phones already on the market | …narrowly tailored to those phone makes and models causing the problem | Financial costs to the wireless industry may be significant |
| 3 | Underwriting and distributing phone button guards | Prevents unintentional speed dialing and redialing of 911 | …wireless manufacturers pay for and distribute the guards, encourage wireless owners to use them, and provide a public assessment of their effectiveness in reducing the problem | Financial costs to the wireless industry may be significant |
| 4 | Prohibiting automatic 911 dialing | Federal law would prohibit the preprogramming of phones to autodial 911; state law would prohibit the use of 911 autodial | …federal law targets manufacturers, not phone owners; and state law targets owners, allowing for graduated sanctions against repeat violators | If there is resistance to a federal law, an FCC order may serve the purpose; police chiefs in each state may need to collaborate to ensure that state laws are enacted; police may find it difficult to persuade certain groups (such as the elderly) not to use 911 autodial |
| 5 | Funneling phantom wireless calls through an automated 911- answering system | Allows dispatchers to more quickly respond to calls | …the FCC supports this approach | May require refinement so as not to adversely affect the deaf; may also require some targeted public education; if wireless manufacturers support this approach over others more costly to them, they should bear the cost of informing customers about how it works, and release the police from liability for using it |
| Responses to Phantom 911Wireless Calls With Limited Effectiveness | ||||
| # | Response | How It Works | Works Best If... | Considerations |
| 6 | Dispatching officers to all phantom wireless calls | Officers respond to all identifiable phantom call locations | …the police agency has a low call load | Reduces the time officers have to address verifiable crime and safety problems; once Enhanced 911, Phase II, is fully implemented, the number of identifiable phantom call locations will increase, as will the number of unwarranted dispatches |
| 7 | Requesting that wireless carriers address phantom calls | Police and other organizations ask wireless carriers to voluntarily address the problem | …the organizations requesting the voluntary compliance notify the FCC that they have done so | Collaborative efforts may be difficult and take time, and voluntary requests have, thus far, proven ineffective |
| Responses to 911 Misdials and Hang-up Calls | ||||
| # | Response | How It Works | Works Best If... | Considerations |
| 8 | Educating the public | Encourages people to dial carefully and to stay on the line if they accidentally call 911 | …911 centers track causes of misdials and hang-ups | General campaigns—as opposed to narrowly tailored ones—are unlikely to correct the problem of misdials; education efforts should be customized, then assessed for effectiveness |
| 9 | Dispatching officers to landline hang-up calls only when there is evidence of an emergency | Reduces the number of unfounded calls that police must handle | …911 centers follow up on hang-ups by sending callers information packets, and graduated sanctions apply to repeat violators | Informing the public about the extent to which hang-up calls drain police resources may help police avoid political fallout for responding only when there is evidence of an emergency; it may help to let citizens know that many police departments now make callbacks, a more efficient and effective practice than automatically responding to hang ups |
| Responses to 911 Hang-Up Calls With Limited Effectiveness | ||||
| # | Response | How It Works | Works Best If... | Considerations |
| 10 | Dispatching officers to all landline hang-up calls | Gives police the opportunity to catch criminals by surprise, since operators do not call numbers back before dispatching them | …a large number of hang-up calls are made by people phoning police to alert them to a crime in progress; however, this is not the case | Most landline hang up calls can be resolved without dispatching officers |
| 11 | Providing no response to pay phone hang-up calls | Dispatchers issue a general alert to officers in the field, but do not dispatch them to the scene unless there is evidence of an emergency | …property overseers monitor pay phones | Requires property overseers' cooperation |
| Responses to Nonemergency 911 Calls | ||||
| # | Response | How It Works | Works Best If... | Considerations |
| 12 | Implementing 311 systems | Reduces demands on 911 systems; reduces caller frustration | …adequate funds are available for 311 technology and staffing | Start-up and maintenance costs may be significant |
| 13 | Educating the public via 911 educators or coordinators | Teaches citizens to use 911 appropriately | …educational initiatives address each aspect of 911 misuse and abuse | Less costly than implementing 311 systems |
| 14 | Targeting violators and applying graduated sanctions | Persuades callers to use 911 appropriately | …efforts are specifically tailored to problem people and phones, rather than overly broad | Civil sanctions require a system for collecting fines; fines could be used to support additional 911 educational efforts |
| 15 | Applying crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) to hot-spot pay phones | Decreases the potential for prank 911 calls from these phones | …officers are trained in CPTED principles and techniques | Some phones may need to be relocated (or removed), which can have financial implications for the owners |
| 16 | Having property overseers monitor hot-spot pay phones | Shifts responsibility for monitoring phones to those who are better able to do so | …police have carefully analyzed the problem at hot-spot locations and are willing to educate property overseers | Some places, such as schools, may not have enough staff to monitor phones, and may resist phone relocation unless convinced of the seriousness of the problem |
| Response to Exaggerated Emergency 911 Calls | ||||
| # | Response | How It Works | Works Best If... | Considerations |
| 17 | Targeting education to the people responsible | Persuades citizens to use 911 appropriately; police acknowledge and address the underlying concerns that prompt the original 911 calls | …911 centers can identify specific blocks making the calls | Requires 911 centers to identify calls that initially receive a priority response, but are subsequently downgraded in priority once police arrive and assess the situation |
| Response to Lonely Complainant 911 Calls | ||||
| # | Response | How It Works | Works Best If... | Considerations |
| 18 | Arranging for suitable company for the callers | Reduces callers' motivations to call 911 inappropriately | …family members or suitable local services are available | Callers may resist assistance; may be time-consuming to ensure appropriate measures are taken |
[1] Dunsworth, (2000).
[2] National Emergency Number Association (2001).
[3] National Emergency Number Association (2001).
[4] Federal Communications Commission (1999). [Full Text]
[5] Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Service (2002). http://www.region.halifax.ns.ca/Fire/pages/911qanda3.html
[6] London Metropolitan Police (2001).
[10] Hannibal Courier-Post (1997).
[12] Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (2000). [Full Text]
[13] Wakefield Police Department (1992). [Full Text]
Dunworth, T. (2000). "Criminal Justice and the IT Revolution." In J. Horney (ed.), Policies, Processes and Decisions of the Criminal Justice System: Criminal Justice 2000. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.
Federal Communications Commission (1999). FCC Docket No. 94-102, adopted May 13 and released June 9. Available at [Full Text]
Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Service (2002). Available at http://www.region.halifax.ns.ca/Fire/pages/911qanda3.htm.
Hannibal Courier-Post (1997). "Board Warns Against False 911 Calls," Dec. 18.
Hixson, R. (2001). National Emergency Number Association letter to 21 wireless carriers, Dec. 12. Available at www.nena.org [Website]
Larson, R. (1998). "9-1-1 Hangups." 9-1-1 Magazine (September/October). Available at www.9-1-1magazine.com [Website]
London Metropolitan Police (2001). "Silent Solution for 999 Mobile Telephone Calls Without Service Request." Press release, Nov. 12.
Ma, K. (2001). "Frivolous 911 Calls Drain Sheriff's Resources." North County Times, The Californian, Feb. 19. Available at www.nctimes.com
National Emergency Number Association (2001). "Report Card to the Nation," Sept. 11.
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (2000). 311 for Nonemergencies: Helping Communities One Call at a Time. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. [Full Text]
Tangonan, S. (2000). "911 Service Burdened by Casual Use." The Courier-Journal, July 22. Available at www.courier-journal.com
Wakefield Police Department (1992). "E-911: Chapter 112 of the Wakefield Code." Available at [Full Text]
Important!
The quality and focus of these submissions vary considerably. With the exception of those submissions selected as winners or finalists, these documents are unedited and are reproduced in the condition in which they were submitted. They may nevertheless contain useful information or may report innovative projects.
911 Abuse [Goldstein Award Winner], St. Petersburg Police Department (FL, US), 1996
Ms H - Persistant caller to Police and Ambulance Service, Cleveland Police Department (Middlesbrough, UK), 2011
Repeat Caller, Cleveland Police Department (Middlesbrough, UK), 2007
Reengineering of 911 Communications, New Orleans Police Department (LA, US), 1997
San Ysidro Boulevard [Goldstein Award Finalist], San Diego Police Department (CA, US), 1998
"The Babbler": A Unique Response to a Unique 911 Hang-Up Situation, San Carlos Police Department (CA, US), 2006
You may order free bound copies in any of three ways:
Online: Department of Justice COPS Response Center
Email: askCopsRC@usdoj.gov
Phone: 800-421-6770 or 202-307-1480
Allow several days for delivery.
Send an e-mail with a link to this guide.
* required
Error sending email. Please review your enteries below.