New York Corrections secures non-inmate areas

Jan 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Carey Adams

The New York State Correctional Department prides itself on being ahead of the curve when it comes to providing the ultimate in correctional security. With 70 facilities and tens of thousands of inmates to watch over, New York has been proactive in inmate security.

In keeping with its trend-setting mode, the state correctional department launched an initiative to find a viable, low-cost security measure for its non-inmate areas. Security around the commissary, pharmacy and state shops within each jail and prison has long been achieved by access control. But the former supplier of access control to the department is now defunct, so the New York State Correctional Department has had to search for a new system to fit its growing needs.

With valuable equipment, goods and money housed in the commissary and pharmacy of each corrections facility, tracking who is given access to various departments is a major concern to administrators.

"We started looking at electronic systems that gave us access to who was going in and out certain doors," says Peter Burl, director of purchasing for the New York State Correctional Department.

Administrators also wanted a system that could document the time-of-day someone ventured into certain non-inmate areas. The access system also needed to be compatible with PCs already in use and be able to integrate seamlessly with existing hardware.

After a careful search, Burl chose Ilco Unican's Millenium, a DOS-based on-line security management system that can be used for multiple access control functions.

The New York State Correctional Department uses Millenium software to monitor reader keys and locks installed on doors. Burl says the state corrections department uses Ilco Unican's Marlok keys to open the pharmacy and commissary. Each key is factory-coded with a pattern of holes through which infrared light passes. The lock reads the pattern and allows or denies access accordingly.

Once the pattern is read, the information is locked into the system software as a date and time file.

For Burl, an intriguing point of Millenium is that the security personnel who need to activate the security keys can do so separately from the main system. The system supports multiple reader technologies to provide a one-card access system.

"Every administrator has the device hooked into their PC that activates the keys for areas such as the commissary and pharmacy. Each key is assigned to an individual and not shared, so each key is unique to that particular activating person," says Burl.

Millenium uses distributed processing: each individual access point can make decisions and store information independently of the control computer. If communication is lost between the computer and the access points, security is not compromised.

The seamless integration with New York Correctional Department's existing system allowed administrators to install Millenium into 17 of the 70 correctional facilities across the state. The installation of the system has worked liked a charm, says Burl.

"It is universal. From the 17 we have installed, it has been reliable. It authorizes someone to open a door or it doesn't authorize someone to open a door based on the program. It records the key which opened it, we know who opened it and it records the date and time the door opened and when it locked," Burl says.

The system has distributed operation - no communication necessary with the main PC unless changes, on-line audit, or real-time alarm reporting are needed. The system supports multiple reader technologies.

The system has also been a boon for the New York Correctional Department because the state did not have to replace the existing telephone lines to integrate the system, keeping all available communication lines open.

Another attractive quality of the system is that correctional personnel could learn to install it. Due to the high-security nature of correctional facilities, it was important that the system be simple to operate so correctional administrators could fix any internal system failure.

"We wrote the contract so our people would have knowledge of the system. We went through three-and-a-half days of training and then went through certification," says Burl. "We did that so no outside source would have to come in and maintain the system."

Expansion within a general area is relatively simple. The addition of an extra door controller in an area with door locking controls will keep the system working without additional improvements. Areas more than 2,000 feet apart must have a line driver put in for the telephone system to give the system signal strength.

Though Millenium has features that allow it to be expanded to create and manage custom photo identification badging, verify security guards on appointed rounds, consolidate useful reports and offer other functions, the New York Correctional Department opted to keep it simple with door tracking. "We didn't want to spend a lot of money. Our product evaluation committee wanted to keep it simple," says Burl.

"We built our own photo ID badging system. We wanted to save money and have our people maintain the system."

Early success has made it possible for the state correctional administrators to request the installation of the system in 27 more facilities in the next two or three years. Burl hopes the bulk of the state's corrections facilities will have Millenium installed within a few years. Once installed, more than 700 people will be under the security of Millenium.

Burl says the state correctional department is looking into the possibility of expanding Millenium beyond the pharmacy, commissary, and state shops.

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