What’s an Integrated System on Your Campus Worth?
Here’s how you can measure the monetary and intangible value of your institution’sinvestment in safety and security equipment.
Ron Ludvigsen is the president of CGL Electronic Security, Inc. and a member of Security-Net.
Impacting parents’ decisions is the visible security they see when they visit a campus. Video cameras monitoring access points that are equipped with card readers equal peace of mind. Mass notification LCD panels that can switch from listing events to instructions in the case of an emergency are another. The fact that they can all work together, should a need arise, is the frosting on the cake.
This is, in fact, a marketing tool for the savvy college and should be seen as such.
Another part has to do with something we’re all intimately familiar with: the Clery Act. Gone are the days when a college’s crime rates are hidden statistics. Today, it’s all out there, it’s all part of your reputation. That statistical breakdown of whether your campus is “safe” or “unsafe” factors into admissions rates.
An integrated system helps keep crime rates down. The system, working in real-time, helps officers stop criminal activities when they’re in-process. A strong security environment, with video integrated with access control, with analytics making the technology even “smarter,” can act as a deterrent. It can nip an automotive breaking-and-entry crime spree down to a few cars because tech-supported officers can react quickly and proactively.
Video, access control, intrusion detection and other systems working together help keep incident rates low, which in turn means your Clery statistics are down. This means your campus,
by the numbers, is safer — and more attractive to mom and dad.
On top of that, it’s hard to measure the impact bad news has on student enrollments. When there is a big, bad incident on a campus, the resultant negative publicity can easily play a role in parents’ and prospective students’ decision-making processes. It may sound crass to tie crime and prevention to admission and to the ROI of an integrated system. This isn’t to put a pricetag on disaster, or to place a monetary value on preventing it. Rather, it’s to point out that prevention — or even mitigation — is paramount and priceless.
Along the same lines, there is a new use of integrated systems among several colleges in the campus-rich area of downtown Boston, in cooperation with the local police department.
The colleges and universities in Boston are sharing their video feeds with Boston police in a security consortium. The cooperation comes into play during big sports championship games, both for college-level sports and, particularly, for professional-level games.
Students, in the past, have had a propensity to enthusiastically take to the streets in the event of big Red Sox victories, or Bruins wins. But by monitoring the growing student activity, the police are able to redeploy forces, cutting off any issues.
The result is far less violence and property crimes for both colleges and the neighborhoods they’re in. That means less civil suits.
And that means less negative publicity, which has immeasurable value.
Integrated Systems Provide ‘Off-Label’ Benefits
As the capabilities of security technology increase and as they’re augmented by integration, both private and public organizations like colleges are finding increasing “off-label” benefits.
These off-label uses aren’t necessarily preventing or monitoring physical property crimes. They are, however, being used as fraud-prevention tools — tools that are saving campuses money.
One example is the use of video monitoring integrated with time-clock technology. This ensures that the appropriate person is “clocking in,” when they report for a shift. It can catch common scams where one person swipes a card for several co-workers, making it appear as if they were all reporting for work on time — rather than defrauding their employer.
The same sort of use can capture outright theft at any point-of-sale location on campus, from bookstores to ticket offices.
And colleges including the University of New Hampshire, the University of Rhode Island, the University of Georgia and the University of Maine have recently installed biometric hand scanners, integrated with the access control/ID card system, to prevent students from allowing friends to claim their meals. Officials at the University of Maine told local media that sharing of plans increases food costs, and so costs to all students.
Because meal plans are often paid for by parents, this level of security gives parents peace of mind that not only are their children safe, but their investment isn’t being wasted — at least not on food for friends.
Safety and Security ROI Can’t Be Summed Up in Dollars
Campus environments are faced with numerous security challenges, such as large campuses, 24/7 access to buildings and tight budgets. By taking an integrated approach, campus security directors have an opportunity to positively influence many facets of campus life, even though it remains a challenge to put an actual dollar amount on the return on investment of an integrated security system.
Ron Ludvigsen is the president of CGL Electronic Security, Inc. and a member of Security-Net.
Related Articles:
- Want to Attend a Safe College? 10 Questions You Should Ask
- USC Campus Security: Taking It to the Streets
- Are You Ready to Embrace Building Systems Integration?
- Your IP Video Surveillance Cheat Sheet
- Case Study: UT Arlington’s 1-Card System Does It All
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