Break-ins and broken windows are unfortunately daily events for most communities. But it is a lot tougher to be a criminal in the Danish district of Egedal since the installation of network video surveillance. The number of vandalism acts alone has fallen by 90%.
When the children and personnel of Egedal come to school on a Monday morning, it is now with a feeling of comfort and safety - but it has not always been like this. The public institutions here have had visits from unwelcome guests many times over the years, who have vandalized or broken into the properties. These have cost a lot of money from the government budgets. When several county districts were combined in recent years, Egedal decided to renovate a number of buildings, with a simultaneous agreement to reduce the scope of these crimes once and for all.
"For many years we had fought against vandalism, especially in the schools, and it was hard on the students. It wasn't fair that every Monday morning they had to fear finding their classrooms destroyed or their computers stolen. So we investigated the options and discovered that IP network video surveillance was the absolute right solution," says Henrik Jørgensen, Head of First Response for Egedal.
Surveillance based on Milestone Systems open platform XProtect™ Enterprise IP video management software was chosen. Since 2008, Egedal has been controlling more than 60 network cameras that are installed in the sports halls, school yards, libraries, job centers, inter-city train stations and other vulnerable areas throughout the district.
With just a few clicks it is easy to get an overview of all the live video or recordings and identify the troublemakers who create problems. Only Egedal security staff and central institution managers have access to the surveillance system, and all recordings are deleted after 30 days, unless they are needed as evidence material.
When a first responder gets an alert about a break-in or act of vandalism, he drives to the site and can check the surveillance video.
"Among other things, it's possible to scroll back and forth between images, compare and synchronize recordings from different views and locations in the same time period, as well as zoom in on the perpetrators for more detail. The Milestone software is working with vandal-resistent video cameras from ACTi HIKvision, Mobotix, IQeye and Axis, and the PTZ cameras pan and focus automatically, following motion themselves. With the high image quality and frame rates set up in the system, it catches many details per second," explains Christian Bruzelius Director of Bruzelius El ApS, who installed the surveillance solution in Egedal.
Technology with a measurable preventive effect
The video surveillance has already proven its worth as evidence material for the police, and it also has a valuable preventive effect, reports Henrik Jørgensen, who continues:
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| Milestone's video surveillance has provided evidence for the Egedal police |
"Often we don't even have to hand over the evidence to the police. In cases where the lawbreaking is done by young people, we talk to them first ourselves, then to the school principal or a social worker, and the parents. When the proof exists and the cost of the vandalism is on their heads, we've experienced that such youth trouble has fallen greatly."
Around Christmas last year an unknown perpetrator smashed 36 windows in the Egedal city hall. The municipality became 70,000 Danish crowns poorer as a result, but richer in experience. Video surveillance has now become part of the daily procedure here - and not just for the purpose of saving such costs from vandalism, but just as importantly to ensure a safe environment for citizens.
"At the start, school personnel were somewhat skeptical about the surveillance, but when they found out that the goal was to manage vandalism and break-ins, their opinions changed. The video surveillance is not used to control the employees but to create an atmosphere of safety and protection," emphasizes Henrik Jørgensen.
In 2008 Egedal registered glass repairs totalling 700,000 Danish crowns, and one school alone that year had glass damage totalling a quarter of a million. Since the video surveillance was installed at the start of 2009, the amount of vandalism has fallen by 90 percent.
IP network into the future
Egedal has invested in an advanced IP video surveillance solution from Milestone Systems and it is paying off with this reduction in vandalism and fewer break-ins to community property. And that's not the end of this story. According to Henrik Jørgensen, the district will continue to follow technology developments in surveillance, and they have already laid plans for the future:
"We are constantly in contact with both Bruzelius El, who installed our solution, and with Milestone. The great thing about the Milestone open platform is that it can be integrated with many different types and models of hardware or software. And if we have a suggestion for Milestone for developing something new in the software, they are always interested to investigate new ideas."
The next step is to implement a new mobile surveillance client in Egedal's guard vehicles to create an even more flexible solution. Via 3G connection to the internet in the cars, security guards can see live video from the area's many cameras. This gives new possibilities for security and surveillance while ensuring that the guards are not limited by being in one place physically. Via mobile surveillance, a guard only has to log in to the central system and get his access to the video then follow different situations at the same time - able to react before a probable incident has a chance to escalate.
"With this new technology the security guards can follow a situation in action before it's too late, or make sure thye don't chase after a false alarm. This really saves on the municipality's resources and strengthens our position against crime," asserts Henrik Jørgensen, and continues:
"We make big demands on our security and choose only solutions that are the most advanced in the market. This is also why we have surveillance cameras and other equipment from many different manufacturers, and why the Milestone open platform is the alpha and omega for us: it can be built up and scale out with no limits."
