Cameras Commonly Deployed but Pose Challenges
Security cameras are immensely popular with K-12 campuses. Forty-eight percent marked this as one of the top five things their institutions should do to improve safety and security. Two out of five college respondents (40 percent) also marked this option.
Experts warn, however, that those campuses deploying cameras and other technologies like metal detectors and intrusion detection should be fully aware that these solutions require integration, maintenance, training of the personnel who operate them and the proper policies to support them.
“We just did an assessment on a school with more technology than I’ve ever seen on a K-12 campus, and one of our analysts was able to get into the building three days in a row and easily smuggle in a shotgun,” says Mike Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens Int’l. “It’s because that technology, which is good technology, wasn’t applied in an integrated fashion.”
K-12s, Universities Have Come a Long Way
When it comes to educational campus safety and security, there are many challenges that remain. That said, the state of campus protection is much ¬better than it was 10 years ago.
“There is not a country my company has dealt with in Asia, the Middle East or Europe where we see the level of sophistication that we see in American schools overall,” says Dorn. “Even in countries like Israel that have a lot of things in place, we sometimes have things in place you wouldn’t see there. I’ve seen a dramatic advance.”
