Emerging Trends
Jan 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By James R. Black
Technology can address evolving security needs on campus.
- Building perimeter control
For traditionally open and unrestricted education environments, closing access to campus facilities during an emergency or security incident has been a tough challenge. Campus public-safety officials for some time have struggled to lock down buildings quickly. Some campuses still use antiquated and inefficient phone trees, relying on land-line phone calls to individual departments to instruct users to close and lock facility access doors manually, one building at a time. Once an all-clear is issued, an equally tedious reverse process is required to return facilities to their normal state. Procedures like this are inefficient and may put staff members at risk.
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On campuses across the nation, emergency management personnel have intensified their efforts to ensure schools are safe....The trend at campuses is to upgrade traditional locks around the building perimeter with electrified locks that are connected to a centralized system. At USC, "perimeter" doors can be anywhere from the basement up to the third floor, depending on site elevation, exterior stairs or connection to nearby structures. When these perimeter door locks are connected to an access-control system, an authorized person could initiate "one-click" locking of a building, a series of buildings, or even an entire campus at the touch of a button. Such a system can automate this process further by attaching pre-determined actions to a specific threat level so that when the campus or building threat level is raised, buildings will lock automatically and be placed under the auspices of the access-control system.
The locks also can be put on a time schedule so that all or part of the campus can be secured or opened automatically at different times. The system can keep doors unlocked, allowing free access, or have them locked so that a campus ID card is needed for entry. Some campuses are moving toward the "keyless campus" approach in any case, with electronic locks and proximity or smart cards to control access.
A proximity card system is not necessarily required to accomplish remote lockdown capability, but moving to an electronic card might reduce or eliminate the systemic manual key-control issues facing many campuses, and give campus security a critical tool in their incident-response tool kit.
Read the sidebar, "Security systems commissioning: An old trick for your new dog," to this article.
Black, CPP, PSP, CSC, CET, is a senior security consultant and operations manager for TRC Solutions' Irvine, Calif., office. He is a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP), ASIS and the International Association of Professional Security Consultants. He can be reached at jblack@trcsolutions.com.
41%
Percentage of K-12 schools that plan to add access-control card systems to their security systems.
54%
Percentage of colleges/universities that plan to add access-control card systems to their security systems.
Source: 2008 School Security Survey, American School & University/Access Control & Security Systems, July 2008.
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