Access Control
& Security Systems

“The visitor does not enter a secure zone, which eliminates waiting and detailed searches. There is something intimidating about entering a jail facility. The use of a reservation makes the inmate available at a predetermined time, making for an organized scheduled visit and more of them in a day.”

What's your video application?

We connect our correctional complex — consisting of seven buildings running from minimum to maximum security — to a visitation center building outside of our security envelope with fiber. We were an early adopter of video visitation between our inmates and their loved ones. This system, originally installed in 1998, connects 54 civilian seats in the visitor center with 160 inmate visitation stations spread among our various correctional buildings. Visitors converse with those incarcerated via CCTV. This lets them have longer visitation and saves the county an enormous amount of money in supervising the movement of inmates.

What are the advantages?

The visitor does not enter a secure zone, which eliminates waiting and detailed searches. There is something intimidating about entering a jail facility. The use of a reservation makes the inmate available at a predetermined time, making for an organized scheduled visit and more of them in a day. Currently, we have an average of more than 400 visits every day. Because time is not wasted transporting inmates back and forth — time in which the old glass-partitioned booth was unoccupied — the inmates and their visitors can spend more time conversing, less time waiting. Our detention deputies can tend to more important duties.

How did you pay for it?

All monies for this come from our Inmate Welfare Fund, which takes a certain percentage of all inmate purchases for candies and other items. There is no cost to the taxpayer.

How complex is this system?

That depends on how you look at it. The original installation is a turnkey system from VuGate. The transmission system core includes the VuGate SuperHub and 300 GE Interlogix Fiber Options two-way multiplexers. Counting everything in the total system, there are approximately 10,000 components.

What are you using to physically connect the system?

The entire system is integrated. All connections entering or leaving a building are fiber-connected, including the visitation center to the inmate visitation booths, which is almost a mile apart.

At that distance, you could have still used coaxial cable. Why did you choose fiber?

You're absolutely correct and the initial installation of copper would have cost less. However, Largo, Fla., is designated as “the lightning capital of the world.” Having dealt with many types of systems over the years, we know that copper creates a high failure rate due to induced surges from either direct or nearby lightning strikes. Fiber transmits light while copper transmits electricity. When lightning strikes our system, as it does here in Largo, the fiber doesn't transmit the electronics-frying jolt that copper will, and thus, the fiber protects our equipment.

How has fiber affected maintenance?

The ongoing cost of maintenance has drastically reduced. For example, a lightning strike in Building A could be passed on to all other buildings if we were using coaxial cable. Fiber manages the input of any direct lightning hit and makes us immune to any induced surges that could get passed into the transmission line and beyond.

Many people specify fiber because of increased bandwidth opportunities. Did this enter into your consideration?

No, bandwidth wasn't an original issue. For instance, we currently use one fiber per conversation. However, our inmate population is growing. Because we already have fiber in, we don't worry about bandwidth at all. To get more bandwidth, we can simply add multiplexers and handle five or more conversations per fiber. By doing so, we would be taking advantage of something we already have.

How reliable is the system?

While all the components of our total system have been very reliable, the components making up the fiber transmission part of the system are much more reliable. Our failure rate is extremely low, much lower than would be acceptable. For instance, we have 300 fiber modems. In any one year, there may be a problem with three to six of them. Now, if we had continual 1- to 2-percent failure rates, even that would be acceptable. However, our failure rate is 1 to 2 percent on an annual basis. From a maintenance and operation point of view, that's simply not a problem.

How does the video visitation system actually work?

The VuGate SuperHub provides the switching between the inmate stations and visitor seats. For maximum flexibility, we can connect any station to any visitor seat. VuGate acts somewhat like a PBX with a phone line, as it switches the video and audio.

The GE Interlogix Fiber Options two-way multiplexers are used to connect the inmate stations to the VuGate SuperHub. They put the video and audio from the station into a GE fiber modem that goes to the seat. The fiber modem converts the audio and video from light into electronics, segregating the audio and video. Going the other way, the same unit unites the audio and video from the seat and converts it into light and sends it via a modem to the station. At the station, the fiber modem repeats the earlier process. Instead of needing a pair of fiber modems for each side of the conversation, the GE Interlogix multiplexer allows us to use just one pair to handle both sides at the same time.

What are your plans for the future?

We plan to increase the number of visitor stations from 54 to 75 to accommodate more visitors. Using VuGate's new CODEC system, we also plan to open the system up to the outside world. After making a time reservation with the Visitation Center, inmates' visitors could communicate with them via the Internet or video conferencing centers. We are also planning to put in remote visitation centers in both the north and south areas of our county.

For information, circle the Reader Service number (listed below) or visit securitysolutions.com