Security systems at 2 schools expanded
April 14, 2009
CUMBERLAND—School officials plan to lock the front doors of two Allegany County elementary schools, striving to strike a balance between public access and children’s safety.
In a unanimous vote Tuesday night—but with some foreboding—the Allegany County School Board agreed to install security systems at West Side and Westernport Elementary schools, where office staff can’t visually monitor who comes and goes.
The $13,000 entry systems, which include video cameras, would allow office staff to see the person trying to enter the school, communicate with them and decide whether to grant access, said Bob Farrell, director of Security, Safety and Risk Management.
“I know schools aren’t supposed to be totally locked up and secured as jails,” Farrell said. “We didn’t grow up in that atmosphere. But times have changed in the world.”
Principals at both schools told board members Tuesday night that because of the proximity of their school offices to the front door they often aren’t aware of who’s inside the building. Westernport’s school office, for example, is on the second floor.
“I want to know who’s coming in and out of the building at all times,” said Gary Stein, principal at Westernport, adding that security cameras at the school have already helped. By reviewing security tapes, he’s caught a vandal and a thief, he said.
But some board members were uneasy about increasing security.
“I think it discourages parents to come to the schools,” said Karen Treber, who also expressed concern about screening people based on skin color or appearance. “We want to keep the bad guys out and let the good people in. I think it’s hard to tell sometimes who’s who...It’s disturbing to me that we are going that far.”
Installing security systems at the two elementary schools will serve as a pilot program, said board member Tom Striplin.
“I would like to see how it works,” said Striplin, adding that he’s not a proponent of locking down schools. “We can test it. We can get some feedback on how it’s working. It gives us a template on where we want to go from here.”
Most of Allegany County’s schools don’t have the same problem as Westernport and West Side because their offices are at the front entrance, said board member Jeff Metz.
“These things aren’t foolproof,” said Metz, adding that officials need to “strike a balance” between access and safety. “If we have a crazy or a lunatic who really wants to do harm our children, they can find a way to get into the schools.”
In other business Tuesday:
After a testy exchange with Frostburg city officials, the board decided to continue mulling whether to allow the city to use a wooded area at Frost Elementary to build two new soccer fields.
With its youth soccer program growing, the city is “desperate for some smaller fields,” said Doug Lemmert, Frostburg’s commissioner of water, parks and recreation. It identified the Frost Elementary land as ideal because several other soccer fields are already there.
“It would be nice if everybody was meeting in the same spot,” Lemmert said.
The board wasn’t convinced. Last month, Facilities Director Vince Montana advised the board not to give up the land in case it’s needed for an expansion of the school. It’s also the only wooded area at the site and is used by environmental science classes.
“There’s so many (soccer) fields that we don’t use,” said Treber. “Should we be building more fields or using the fields we have?”
Lemmert, agitated, said the city feels the Frost land would be what’s “best for the kids.”
“The city of Frostburg’s been very generous to this board,” Lemmert said, adding that the board used some of the city’s fields during the construction of Mountain Ridge High School. “I would appreciate some reciprocation.”
Later, Frostburg Mayor Arthur Bond said the city “may have to decide to tighten up the use of some of our fields” if the Frost land isn’t made available.
Metz tried to avert a tit-for-tat, saying “I don’t want to go in that direction,” and pointing out that the city “got a brand new school right in the middle of Frostburg,” referring to the $40 million Mountain Ridge. The board tabled a vote.
Also Tuesday, the board:
• Learned how Allegany County fared in the biannual Maryland Adolescent Survey, which tracks students’ use of alcohol, cigarettes and other drugs. Among the most significant findings: A third of high school seniors in Allegany County reported they had been a passenger in a vehicle with a drinking driver. A quarter of 10th graders and 17.9 percent of eighth graders said the same.
“This is really quite astonishing,” said Loralee Farrell, director of Health and Family Life.
Among positives in the report: Allegany County teens are drinking less and using fewer drugs than a decade ago, the survey shows. The state of Maryland trends the same way.
“We have a really good decline in the usage of all these substances—except marijuana,” Farrell said.
Survey results show that parents are less likely to talk to older teens about alcohol and drug use than younger children. Fifty-seven percent of six-graders who said they didn’t use alcohol or drugs said their parents talked to them about it. In comparison, just 25 percent of 12th-graders who said they didn’t use drugs said their parents talked to them about substance abuse.
“It’s very critically important that parents stay engaged,” Farrell said. “It’s got to be a combination of home, school, community, law enforcement.”
Intergrating Building Design into Security Systems
04/13/2009
The process of coordinating security at a justice facility is a complex one. Operations in such facilities pose special challenges as prisoner, staff and even visitor behavior can be a volatile mixture.
Security personnel rely heavily on the built environment to prepare security procedures for a variety of events and situations. This program takes diverse scenarios into account, ranging from safe and secure movement and operations during normal daily activities to various emergency situations -- such as disturbances by inmates or visitors, medical emergencies, rioting and attacks from outside.
There are several key members involved in establishing a secure environment: correctional agencies and their guidelines, security and law enforcement personnel and Corrections Emergency Response Team (CERT). The architect plays a crucial role in the identifying security measures in a justice facility from conception through design. A justice design architect has to first understand the exact behavior of the facility and its occupants during various scenarios and then determine how to manage and mitigate potential security issues through design (for example, what route the CERT team would need to take in case of prison riots). Once these issues have been identified, both passive and active measures are integrated into the design of the facility to aid security personnel in managing safety and security efficiently.
Passive design solutions are applied by integrating design features, elements, and planning solutions into the built environment. These elements are the least obtrusive and require less effort to integrate into the facility’s design.
Active design solutions involve security system technologies that are generally established during later phases of design. These solutions require specialized design and planning and can represent a significant portion of the project budget; however, proper planning and design can help reduce the needed quantity of applications and also improve their efficiencies. This streamlining effort can ease the owner’s financial burden and simplify efforts toward security and general operations.
SECURITY SYSTEM TECHNOLOGIES
Some of the primary security technology systems used in justice facilities include the following:
- video surveillance,
- secure communications,
- intrusion detection,
- access control and lock control and
- duress alarm system.
When integrating these security components on the building, it is imperative that the facility design itself support the purpose of the application as the application itself. For example, a CCTV camera is not effective if it faces the west façade, where it receives the full blast of the afternoon sun.
Efficient security systems design begins during the early design phase or Design Development phase. During this design phase, the security systems professional reviews the design for possible applications and solutions. Their individual needs are reviewed with the architect and appropriate design modifications are applied during this phase when it is easier to make significant changes.
Let’s examine how some of these applications are designed more efficiently.
Video Surveillance System
The key component of the video surveillance system is the camera itself. It relies on the various physical characteristics of the environment to capture the scene accurately. Depending on the location, various factors affect the efficiency of the captured information. At a minimum, a camera should have unobstructed sightlines. Mounting height and placement is important, especially for facial recognition. The target, whether it is a single element or a larger environment, establishes the distance at which the camera is installed. A pan-tilt-zoom camera (PTZ) has more capabilities; however, its ability to be at the right place at the right time requires more planning and consideration.
On the building’s exterior, the camera is used to monitor parking areas, entry to site and buildings, secure perimeters, recreation areas and various activity areas. Typical obstructions to factor in are walls, vegetation, fencing, columns, canopies and vehicles. Special consideration needs to be made for vegetation since dimensions change for fully grown plants and trees. The proper positioning is accomplished by mounting cameras on dedicated poles or on the building. Once targets to be viewed via a CCTV camera have been established, potential camera locations are established and appropriate design modifications are coordinated with the architect.
For interior applications, the most common purpose of a camera is to be able to see faces and activities. Typical obstructions are walls, projections on walls and light fixtures that can blind portions of the camera’s view. Again, positioning and height are important, so appropriate design modifications required are coordinated with the architect. In dayrooms, face-to-face cameras with overlapping sightlines ensure overall coverage of the space. In holding cells, a camera can be placed above the toilet and aimed toward the seating areas to ensure views of the detainees while allowing for toilet privacy.
Security Intercom System
Secure communication devices such as wall and ceiling intercoms are often overlooked when designing a facility; however, their positioning is equally critical. For example, emergency intercoms in prison cells, which are installed close to floor level, provide easy access to a person who is incapacitated on the floor. The distance between speakers in corridors depends on the length of the corridor. Finishes, such as acoustical ceiling tile versus security gypsum board, must also be considered as various finishes affect sound transmission.
Intrusion Detection System (IDS) Whether external (Perimeter Intrusion Detection System or PIDS) or internal, IDS relies on the built environment for efficiency. Exterior factors such as site terrain, snow and debris on the ground affect buried cable IDS. Similarly, adjoining roads, climate or birds that are attracted to adjoining dumpsters affect fence-mounted IDS. Operationally, visitors’ and vehicular sallyports require coordination to ensure that the PIDS is not breached during any vehicular or pedestrian movement.
Interior IDS applications include motion sensors, glass breakage sensors and door position sensors. Efficiency of motion sensors is reduced by obstructions (e.g., furniture) and range(size of room). In such cases, more quantities or more features in devices are required. For glass breakage sensors, range is critical so wall location and ceiling layout requires coordination for proper positioning.
Door position switches (DPS) send a signal to the control panel indicating whether the door is open or closed. Depending on the type of door and hardware, the device itself needs coordination. For example, a swing arm type DPS, such as Southern Steel 220A or 240CPS, would make it difficult to add a closer to the door.
Access Control and Lock Control System Access control involves controlling movement between two different environments or spaces. Movement could be through openings like doors, gates and shutters. The selection of the locking device itself can affect the proportions of the space. For frame-mounted locks, jamb widths are considered that can affect location of adjacent walls. Similarly, if the width of a cell is too narrow, then the slider assembly housing will not be able to fit along the face of the cells. In the same way, the slider housing can also affect the width of a corridor. For card readers, the placement itself has to be at the right height and location so that adjacent furniture or accessories do not obstruct access.
For exterior swing or sliding gates that are operated electronically, clearances are planned for opening and closing of gates. Natural sightlines are provided from an adjacent control station for additional security.
Duress Alarm System The key objective of a duress alarm system is to send a signal indicating duress at a particular location so that immediate response or assistance can be received. When planning, the security systems designer has to ensure that the duress signal is audible and that the response team or personnel are at a reasonable distance from the person in distress.
The key objective of the duress alarm switch is access. A correctly installed wall-mounted switch is clearly visible, mounted at the right height and is easy to reach in case of an emergency. If furniture or other elements obstruct access, it is not effective. A furniture-mounted concealed switch is useful in a seated position, although it is generally installed in fixed furniture.
Even with all the innovations taking place today in security systems technology, architectural integration with security systems is extremely important. The ideal time to start planning security systems is during the early design phase when the architect and the security systems designer can complement each other’s efforts. This can lead to a cost-effective and more efficient security system for a facility.
