Order In The Court

Sep 1, 2007 12:00 PM

Even in rural America, county courtrooms have become a dangerous place to be — and to work. Increasingly, judges and court workers find themselves being threatened by defendants, plaintiffs and others unhappy with the day's proceedings.

A challenge is to detect threats early enough — before they can escalate into full-blown incidents.

One system meeting the challenge is the Lapeer County, Mich., court system, home to the 40th circuit court, 71A district court, probate court and juvenile court. The campus consists of the county annex building, county administration building and the Lapeer County Historic Courthouse. Most court business today is conducted in the county administration building, although a few select cases are still tried at the historic county courthouse, which dates back to 1846, and is the oldest continuously active courthouse in the state of Michigan.

The campus features seven courtrooms, holding cells, offices for judges and other county officials and amenities such as washrooms and showers. The Lapeer County Government uses a wide-area network (WAN) to provide networking and Internet connections.

A backbone of more than 90 miles of fiber optic cable is used by both the county schools and the county government, connecting school buildings, local police departments and township offices throughout the county.

However the emergency communications system that connected the courtrooms and other key areas (such as holding cells) to the control center was out of date. The system was really a nurse's paging system that operated as a panic button if a judge anticipated a situation getting out of hand.

Chuck Madden, a technology consultant for the Lapeer County Intermediate School District for 14 years, was “loaned” to the courts to provide a safety/security upgrade.

“We all work together here,” Madden says. “If the project is beneficial to the county, then we partner together to make it work. We don't like doing things twice.”

What Madden found was a system that wasn't working. All but one of the panic button lights were inoperative — either the lights were already non-functional or they were knocked out by various remodeling projects. Although Madden was brought in to install a video surveillance system, it was determined that upgrading the intercom system at the same time would be cost-efficient and provide greater safety within the building.

“What you see on a video can be deceiving,” he says. “An attorney or a person defending himself may be very physically ‘active' while trying to make a point, but he may not be a threat. On the other hand, another person may appear to be calm but is getting ready to explode. It just seemed that adding on-demand sound to the video would provide a better indication of potential trouble. We decided we needed a true intercom system.”

Among the key requirements was activation on both ends. That way, if a judge suspected trouble, he or she could turn the system on so the deputy manning the control center could hear it and take the appropriate action. If those monitoring the audio in the control center heard something questionable in the courtrooms and holding cells, they could take quick action to intercede before the problem escalated.

Madden took his search for a new system to the Internet, where he came across Digital Acoustics, Lake Forest, Ill., a supplier of an IP-based intercom system.

“With Digital Acoustics' system, we are able to plug in to the existing WAN network cabling, saving us a ton of time related to installing a hard-wired system,” he says. “And if we decide to add to the system or move a box later, it's easy to do.”

“In fact, the toughest part of the entire installation was drilling the mounting screws into the judges' bullet-proof benches,” he says. “Each of those took about an hour. Other than that, it was pretty much plug-and-play.”

Lapeer County installed 15 Digital Acoustics ii3 intercom boxes, along with the TalkMaster Enterprise Edition software. The IP intercom delivers voice-quality audio over Ethernet, wireless and fiber, in local-area or wide-area networks. The software addresses the special needs of multi-station, multi-operator and multi-site installations. It manages the ii3 IP Intercom by providing voice-quality sound, including Quality of Service (QOS), and low-network bandwidth utilization (80 kbps per session). It also manages thousands of intercoms from multiple sites and consoles, regardless of geography.

Seven of the boxes are on the judge's benches in the courtrooms and two in the Friend of the Court Hearing rooms. If a judge has a concern, he/she can press a button and the sound will immediately go on in the command center. The other units are located at the doorway access to the lockup areas and within the cell area itself.

Monitoring the holding cells is a particular challenge. It's important to keep tabs on activities there since problems can erupt at any moment. Madden says watching multiple video images is difficult to execute due to fatigue issues, and in cases such as a washroom facility, there are privacy issues. Sounds coming through the Digital Acoustics intercom, however, will attract the attention of deputies immediately, alerting them to take needed action.

Judges and deputies alike have praised the sound quality of the system. “You can hear all the way from the bench to the back of the courtroom,” Madden says. “They are able to distinguish speech from background noise easily, even at low-volume levels. The deputies feel that it has greatly upgraded their ability to identify trouble and act on it.”

Also useful is the ability to route the Digital Acoustics intercom to more than one console. In addition to the Courthouse, Lapeer County is adding a server in the 9-1-1 emergency response center in case further police backup is required. They are also planning to create an interface to the cell phones carried by deputies so they can respond to situations when they are on rounds or elsewhere on the grounds. Other applications being considered include:

• Expanding the system to buildings that offer health and medical care

• Extending it into the hallways and entryways of local schools

• Placing intercom units in special education classrooms to provide support on behavioral issues that get out of hand; also to allow outside consultants to monitor classroom activity or an individual's behavior without the disruption of being in the room

• Using it as a backup communications system for the phones through a Power-over-Ethernet capability to allow the county to maintain emergency communications with the courtrooms and other areas on campus, even in the event of a power blackout

An immediate result has been the ability to increase the level of security, particularly in the courtrooms where judges often are very vulnerable, without increasing the number of deputies. The combination of video and voice allows them to make rounds without having to leave the command center or their desks. In fact, they are finding it is more efficient than physical rounds because they can monitor the entire complex at once rather than a segment at a time. The ability to connect to the 9-1-1 center adds a further layer of safety and security.

The ability to use the WAN at multiple sites is a huge advantage over having everything hard-wired into one location.

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© 2009 Penton Media Inc.

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