THE police are reporting that they sometimes receive more than 7,600 (85 per cent) prank calls to the 119 emergency number on a day.

Head of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) Emergency Communication Centre, Senior Superintendent Gary Francis says an estimated 5,000 to 9,000 calls are made to the 119 number each day, the vast majority of which are non-emergencies.

“We really want to appeal to our citizens to empower and educate their neighbours, friends and children not to call the number in jest. We have a queuing system, so it is the first call that is sent that will be answered,” a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) release quotes Francis.

“Somewhere down that queue may be a very serious life-threatening call that we lose, because we didn’t get to it because of the number of calls coming in,” warned Francis.

He said while the police will use moral suasion to get people to stop making prank calls, they will soon be armed with legislation to deal with the long-standing issue.

“There is legislation that is on the way to treat with all of this, and there’s also the technological advancement that we’ll be able to identify those who are doing this. But before we even get to that place, we want to urge citizens to avoid using the line without a reasonable cause,” added Francis.

He noted that the JCF sees an uptick in prank calls during the hours after schools are dismissed.

“There is this trend in the afternoon, and we call that the peak time, when children come home from school. We even saw on one eight-hour shift where about 4,000 calls were received. We do know that sometimes the calls are made by accident; for example, people can pocket dial, but persons need to be mindful,” Francis said.

In the meantime, head of the JCF’s Development and Logistics Portfolio, Deputy Commissioner of Police Dr Kevin Blake said people need to understand the severity of the impact when prank calls are made to the emergency number.

“The word emergency means something to the JCF. It means someone is in need of help, and you might think it is fun, as you don’t see the harm in the end, but persons have lost their lives because we could not get to them in time, because of prank calls. So parents, monitor your children, and for everyone, allow emergency calls to go through, because that’s what they are,” said Blake.