Research · 2 min read
97% Closed Without Police. What Actually Happened Instead?
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.
Our analysis of 3,486 closed incidents, july 1, 2025 through june 30, 2026.
When an incident closes without police involvement, what actually happened?
Among 3,486 incidents closed from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, 3,366 did not involve police, and 75.3% of those non-police closures ended in an outcome other than ‘no issue found.’ The useful answer is the outcome mix behind the headline—not the 96.6% alone.
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.
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.
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.
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. And keep the caveat attached: this describes one closed-incident cohort. It's not proof of effect, and it's 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?
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.
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.
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 closed incidents and the 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.
Sources
This study is 911 Sentinel's own work, built from our operational records.
Related questions and practical guides
New coverage — intake open
Ask for the disposition mix, not one percentage
A site assessment can define the incident, response, resolution, and escalation measures that should appear in a property-specific operating report.