Research · 5 min read
96.6% Closed Without Police Hides Six Endings
A non-police closure rate is only useful when the provider also shows dispositions, unresolved cases, and the denominator behind it.
97% of incidents closed without police involvement — it’s the headline on our own site, and it’s true: the exact figure across 3,486 closed incidents is 96.6%. But “without police” isn’t one outcome. It’s six different ones, and the mix is the part worth reading. The largest single ending isn’t a false alarm — it’s a person choosing to leave.
Our analysis of 3,486 closed incidents, July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026.
Key takeaways
- Of 3,486 closed incidents, 3,366 (96.6%) had no police involvement — but that is a group of six different endings, not one outcome.
- Voluntary departure was the largest single disposition at 1,238 closures (35.5%); “no issue found” was only 832 (23.9%).
- 75.3% of non-police closures ended in something more substantive than “no issue found.”
- A closure rate is only meaningful beside its disposition mix, its denominators, and its unresolved cases (159, or 4.6%).
What does “closed without police involvement” actually mean in practice?
Among 3,486 incidents closed from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, 3,366 (96.6%) involved no police — but that single figure collapses six different endings. Voluntary departure alone was 1,238 closures (35.5%), “no issue found” was only 832 (23.9%), and the rest were property secured, documented only, owner contacted, unable to resolve, or a police handoff. Read the mix, not the headline.
The numbers behind the answer
Selected measures only. Denominators and interpretation stay attached so the headline cannot stand alone.
96.6%
Closed without police involvement
3,366 of 3,486 closed incidents had no police-involvement flag.
75.3%
Non-police closures beyond “no issue”
2,534 of 3,366 non-police closures ended in a disposition other than no issue found.
3.4%
Police handoff
120 of 3,486 closed incidents ended in the police-handoff disposition.
Closed without police is a group of outcomes—not one outcome
Start with what the headline actually includes. Across twelve months, 3,486 incidents closed; 3,366 of them carried no police involvement. So far, so good. But only 832 of those closures were “no issue found.” Reading “closed without police” as “mostly false alarms” would be wrong — 75.3% of non-police closures ended in something more substantive.
The other 2,534 closures are real work with real endings: a person left voluntarily, a door got secured, an owner got a call, a report got written — or, 159 times, the incident couldn’t be resolved. “Without police” tells you who wasn’t needed. The disposition mix tells you what happened instead.
Keep the police number in view, too. Only 120 of 3,486 closures (3.4%) ended in a police handoff, and that is a final disposition — a case where a responder made the call to escalate. It is not the same as police being involved at some earlier step and a different outcome following. A provider that cannot separate those two ideas cannot report its rate honestly.
The useful measure
Keep the 96.6% denominator beside the disposition mix and unresolved outcomes.
Voluntary departure is the largest category; no issue found is second
The single largest outcome is voluntary departure: 1,238 incidents, 35.5% of everything closed. Most of the time, resolution by presence is exactly what it sounds like — a responder shows up, and the situation leaves.
After that: no issue found (832, 23.9%), property secured (424, 12.2%), documented only (374, 10.7%), owner contacted (339, 9.7%). Then the honest tail: 159 closures (4.6%) marked unable to resolve, and 120 (3.4%) handed to police. A scorecard that shows 96.6% without that mix underneath it is marketing, not reporting.
Read the mix in pairs and it gets sharper. Voluntary departure plus property secured — the two endings where presence alone changed the situation — account for 47.7% of closures, nearly half. The top three categories together cover 71.6%. The unresolved and handoff tails, at 8% combined, are small enough to be forgotten and important enough that they shouldn’t be.
Evidence visual
Final disposition across 3,486 closed incidents
Shares use all closed incidents as the denominator. The police-handoff category is shown beside six non-police dispositions.
What counts as “resolved” changes the rate
Two providers can report the same 96.6% and mean different things by it. Does “resolved” mean the presenting problem ended, the property was secured, a person was contacted, or simply that the record was closed? This aggregate uses a mutually exclusive final disposition, which is why the mix adds back to 100% of closures — voluntary departure, no issue found, property secured, documented only, owner contacted, unable to resolve, and police handoff.
The uncomfortable category is the 159 unresolved closures. They are counted among the non-police group, and they should be. A provider that folded unresolved cases into “resolved” would inflate its rate; one that dropped them entirely would shrink the honest denominator. The question to ask any provider is what happens to a case that closes without resolution — and whether it stays in the report.
Ask for outcomes, exceptions, and subgroup stability
If you’re evaluating any provider’s closure rate — ours included — ask for the working parts. What’s the denominator? Is each final disposition mutually exclusive? Can police be involved earlier in an incident that still ends non-police? Where do unresolved cases go?
Then ask whether the mix is stable: by month, event type, property type, shift. One aggregate can hide very different operating conditions. A property with a high volume of trespass may see more voluntary departures; one with more after-hours vacancy may see more property-secured endings. The headline holds only if the subgroups do.
And keep the caveat attached: this describes one closed-incident cohort. It is descriptive, it does not establish the service’s causal effect, and it is not a promise your property will see the same mix.
- What starts and closes an incident record?
- Is final disposition mutually exclusive?
- Can police be involved before a non-police final disposition?
- How are unable-to-resolve and reopened records reported?
- Does the mix change by event type, severity, property, shift, or month?
The 96.6% is a definition, and the mix is the evidence
The headline number is 96.6% — 3,366 of 3,486 closed incidents without police. But the definition is the finding. Nationally, an offense is cleared by arrest or by exceptional means, a documented standard the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program reports against. A private incident closes when a responder records a final disposition: voluntary departure 1,238 (35.5%), no issue found 832 (23.9%), property secured 424 (12.2%), documented only 374 (10.7%), owner contacted 339 (9.7%), unable to resolve 159 (4.6%), police handoff 120 (3.4%). Those are different acts with different meanings.
Two of those categories — voluntary departure and property secured — account for 47.7% of closures, and the top three cover 71.6%. That is situational prevention showing up as arithmetic: a visible responder changes opportunity by presence, so the modal ending is departure or a secured space, not an arrest. It is a different measure from a clearance, not a better or worse one.
Keep the definition beside the number. Ask what clears a record, whether the 159 unresolved closures stay in the denominator, and whether the mix holds by event type and shift — then compare that structure to what you actually need from coverage.
Definition question
Ask what “cleared” means before comparing closure rates across providers.
Questions property teams ask
What counts as police involvement?
The aggregate uses the incident record’s police-involvement field and the police-handoff disposition. The operating definition should remain documented beside the result.
Does closed without police mean it was a false alarm?
No. Only 832 of 3,366 non-police closures were labeled no issue found; the rest carried another final disposition.
What is the most common outcome?
Voluntary departure, at 1,238 closures or 35.5% of all closed incidents. Resolution by presence — a responder arriving and the situation ending — is the modal ending.
Why show the disposition mix instead of one rate?
Because 96.6% without police is one number built from six different endings. The mix, plus the 159 unresolved closures, is what makes the rate interpretable.
Is unable to resolve included among non-police closures?
Yes. There were 159 such closures, which is why the non-police share should never be presented without the outcome mix.
Does 96.6% predict the result at another property?
No. It describes this closed-incident cohort. Event types, property conditions, coverage design, and escalation needs can differ.
Does “closed” mean the same thing as a police clearance?
No. A police offense is cleared by arrest or exceptional means, a defined standard. A private incident record closes when a final disposition is recorded, which is a broader and more variable event.
Our methods, limits, and sources
How we calculated this
This is original 911 Sentinel research — we gathered the records, ran every calculation below, and published the aggregate dataset.
We counted closed incident records from our own operations, separated those with police involvement, and calculated final-disposition shares using both all closures and non-police closures as explicit denominators.
- We validated incident IDs, timestamps, closed state, property linkage, police flag, and allowed dispositions.
- We counted all 3,486 closed incidents and the 3,366/120 police/non-police split.
- We calculated each disposition’s share of all closures and of non-police closures where applicable.
- We inspected monthly and operational subgroup stability and suppressed small public cells.
What this analysis cannot establish
- The cohort contains closed incidents and does not describe open or missing records.
- A final disposition compresses a potentially multi-step incident into one label.
- The aggregate does not establish the service’s causal effect.
- Property and event-type mixes may differ elsewhere, so the result is not a guarantee.
- Unresolved closures are retained in the non-police group and should not be read as successes.
Sources
The raw records come from the sources below; the study design, analysis, charts, and conclusions are our own.
Related questions and practical guides
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Ask for the disposition mix, not one percentage
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