Wireless Protection

Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, BY Randy Southerland

For the nearly 10,000 civilian employees who work in New York State's prisons, thoughts of personal safety are never far away. These nurses, counselors, librarians, mechanics, administrators and other staff provide a range of services in medium and maximum security correctional facilities, often working directly with hardened criminals. They don't carry weapons but they can face many of the same threats that guards encounter in a community of sometimes violent offenders.

Providing an extra measure of security for civilians was the driving force behind equipping employees with a new kind of personal security alarm. While civilian employees have long carried alarms, their functionality was limited to telling guards what location the device's owner was assigned to — such as an office or medical station. The exact location of the alarm was not communicated.

“We had an existing system that didn't do the location, and the technology that would have been the add-on to do it wasn't satisfactory to us,” says Thomas McQuade, facilities planner with the New York State Department of Correctional Services.

Officials wanted a system that was dependable, but also simple to operate and install. After consulting with other prison systems and visiting sites to see them in operation, Corrections Services settled on the Security Escort Personal Alarm System from Fairport, N.Y.-based Bosch Security Systems.

“It was simple to install, and it was time-proven technology,” McQuade explains. “We don't necessarily need to be cutting edge, but we like equipment that's robust, and their track record led us to this product.”

If a staff member is attacked or threatened, he or she can trigger the Bosch alarm device attached to his or her belt. The device's “man-down” function also alerts officials if it is tipped over a certain period of time, making it useful in situations where someone may have become incapacitated by a heart attack or other health emergency.

Once activated, a central console is alerted to the potential emergency situation, and security can locate the device within a 35 to 40-ft. radius. If the attackers attempt to drag the victim to a more secluded location, the device shows the path along with the location at which the incident first occurred. Nearby guards can then be alerted by radio to investigate.

These improvements provide a new level of personal security, officials contend.

“If you are assigned to work in a prison library for instance, you could have to leave the library to go to do something in another part of the prison. If you are attacked in a hallway and you set off [the old] alarm, it only indicates to security that you are assigned to the library and that you're in trouble,” explains Erik Kriss, spokesman for New York's Correctional Services. “If [the guards] get to the library and you're not there, they have to keep looking for you.”

The alarms will be installed over the next three years in nearly all medium and maximum security facilities in the state.

The first test for the department was installed at the Sullivan Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison for male inmates in Fallsburg, N.Y. The devices were distributed as auxiliary transmitters in two buildings on the remote campus — one multi-story and another single-story.

“We put them through their paces for about two to three months,” McQuade says.

Officials monitored how the devices located subjects within the testing area and observed how well they were able to track through various sections of the buildings.

The Security Escort System operates wirelessly using installed transmitting points throughout the buildings. When a transmitter is activated, multiple receivers pick up the alarm signal.

“Those receivers detect an alarm signal in a certain strength range level and then, basically, the system will evaluate that, even with changes in weather, and then position [the subject] in a box between four of them,” McQuade explains. “We just need them on the perimeter because we would triangulate and locate the person in between buildings by the receivers that are in the buildings.”

When these alerts show up on a computer display at a central location, the signal is updated every seven seconds. This feature provides for accurate tracking with the display showing the particular area of the building.

A typical 120-foot-long by 60-foot-wide structure might be subdivided into four sections. The alarm signal and the user's identification are received at this central console. Location and direction of travel are graphically displayed on the computer monitor. It even includes a picture of the staff member along with a written description provided to the officer acknowledging the alarm.

“Then he would go through his process of calling the alarm out to the location,” McQuade says.

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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