A pioneering new criminal justice centre in Liverpool has invested in the latest access control technology from world leading door entry supplier Urmet Domus to ensure the secure running of the centre.
North Liverpool Community Justice Centre (CJC), which opened last October, focuses on ensuing offenders make amends to the community for their crimes. The centre, based on the successful Red Hook Community Justice Centre in New York, has its own courtroom and is the first of its kind in the UK. The centre serves the Liverpool districts of Anfield, Breckfield, Everton, Vauxhall, County, Melrose and Kirkdale.
Merseyside Police, the Crown Prosecution Service and probation and youth offending teams all have offices at North Liverpool CJC to provide advice and support services. The centre has a community judge who consults local residents over how offenders should be treated. Treatment programmes and community punishments for offenders are monitored from the centre, and if convicted offenders persist in offending, they still face a custodial sentence.
Access to North Liverpool CJC's main and rear entrances is controlled by an Urmet Domus video and audio intercom system, along with Urmet's K-Steel vandal-resistant entry panels. Mike Ainscough, sales director at MP Electronic Fire and Security, which installed the access control equipment, explains: "When a lorry with a defendant in the back arrives at the vehicle barrier, the driver can request access to the building via the intercom." Staff on foot gains access to the building by waving their ID card at the proximity reader located outside the building's main entrance.
An Urmet Domus audio intercom system has been fitted inside North Liverpool CJC too, so people in either the court's cell area or magistrates' retiring quarters can be called to the courtroom.
Mike has been impressed with the sound and picture quality of Urmet's video and audio intercom system. "Both the picture quality and sound quality are crystal clear," he says.
Mike also praises Urmet's K-Steel vandal-resistant entrance panels, which he says were easy to integrate into North Liverpool CJC's PC-based access control system: "We chose the equipment because it's well made and reliable, which is extremely important for access control, especially in an application such as a court."
Urmet's attractive-looking K-Steel entrance panels are cased in galvanized sheet metal and are IP45 rated, which means they can resist being penetrated by water jets or any solid object larger than one millimetre. The panels are also resistant to fire and corrosion.