Do home invasion alarm systems really make you much safer?
In the commercials, they make it look perfect. A home, usually that of a young woman, alone, is broken into by someone who wants to harm/rape her. The alarm goes off, the guy runs, and the police come, and the idea is why would anyone stay on the premises knowing the police are on the way?
But is that really the way it works? The Archilles Heel is that they call you if you don’t shut off the alarm. So they person who more likely has a gun puts it to your head and says "Tell them it’s a false alarm. Now shut off the alarm."
So, really much safer?
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Home invasions are fairly uncommon, burglars know the difference in penalty between "burglary" and "forcible confinement" and generally they want to get out of there if they bump into people.
That said if someone breaks into your home with the intent to sexually assault you and they set off your alarm then you are right, they could force you to tell the monitoring company that everything is all right or to disarm the system yourself.
This has been considered by the security company, and there are two common responses:
The first is called a "duress code", this is a code that is one digit longer or shorter than the normal arm/disarm code (this feature usually has to be activated by a technician, and is rarely used anymore). ie if your code is normally 1234 then enter 1235. The code turns off the alarm but warns the alarm company that you have forced to disarm the system, and they will send police/security to investigate.
The second failsafe is a "passcode" that the subscriber MUST supply to the alarm company when they do a verification call (the phone call to make sure everything is alright), if someone is forcing you to tell them everything is fine then simply give the alarm company the WRONG passcode. Alarm operators are told to accept ANY response with a "thank you". If it is correct they close out the alarm, if it is wrong then they send the appropriate authority to check it out.
They may ask you to repeast the passcode, but they should NEVER say something like "thats the wrong passcode". This sort of situation is EXACTLY why this process is used.
Alarm systems are not magic, they provide a layer of security (referred to as "target hardening"), this combined with effective perimeter lighting and good locks and doors makes your home appear to be a more difficult target to criminals and they take the path of least resistance and burgle a neighbor or someone who has taken less precautions.