Wireless Protection

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

           

The ability to respond quickly provides staff members with the reassurance that if they find themselves in trouble, help is on the way. Staffers can also periodically test the devices themselves to make sure they are working.

These Bosch alarms have been in use for the last 15 years. Originally, the company developed and marketed the device with the college and university market in mind.

“The student would carry a transmitter and then anywhere on that campus environment, if they were threatened in any way, they could squeeze two buttons together and call for help, and we would be able to locate them within about 20 ft. in any direction of that transmitter,” says Hal Faith, manager, Bosch Systems Support for Security Escort.

While a small number of campuses bought into the system, the market never developed as the company had hoped. Instead, its simplicity and durability have made it a popular choice among correctional facilities and in the hospital environment. More recently, assisted-living facilities, mental health centers and similar locations have started buying a version that features transmitters and devices programmed to the special needs of these institutions.

In the meantime, civilian employees across New York are waiting for the personal alarms to be rolled out at their locations. For these workers, they represent a victory that many say has been a long time coming.

Unions representing civilian corrections employees have long sought a more effective personal alarm system for their members. Assaults by inmates on staff have declined over the past 15 years from a high of 1,260 in 1990 to 531 in 2006. Officials attribute the decline to a variety of factors including a declining prison population.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, New York saw a tremendous spike in its prison population following passage of the so-called Rockefeller Drug Laws, which came down particularly hard on even small-time drug offenders and imposed long mandatory sentences. Signed by the late Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in the early 1970s, during a time when the public was demanding a war on drugs, the laws were effective in getting offenders off the streets.

“The problem is that even a guy on the corner with a nickel bag or a couple of joints in his possession could go to prison,” Kriss says. “A lot of these people were going [to prison] and they were just filling up the prisons to over-capacity. If you have more potentially dangerous people crowded into one spot, the potential for danger and the potential for strife among these inmates is greater.”

In recent years, the laws have been relaxed even as crime in general has declined across the country. While this has made prisons less violence-prone, prison officials are still seeking ways to increase personal safety for staff.

“Everybody's safety is important, and we wanted to make sure that we were giving our civilian employees the best possible safety measures we could,” Kriss says.

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