subject: Security Camera Systems Save Schools Money [print this page] Security Camera Systems Save Schools Money
Vandalism costs our schools a hefty amount each year, even small scale vandalism can cost thousands of dollars to repair. In addition to helping keep our kids safer, a good security camera system can be very effective at putting a stop to vandals. This allows schools to spend there limited budgets on improving the educational experience, instead of repairing this senseless destruction.
In southern Arizona, there is a junior high and a high school all on one campus, that has had a long history of persistent break ins and vandalism. One such incident took place in the early morning of a Sunday in January of this year. When school personal showed up for work in the morning they immediately encountered a broken window in the high school's gym along with other substantial damage on the middle school portion of the campus. Superintendent of Schools David Woodall said, "Our campus is just so unexposed to the streets that a person can come on campus at night and walk around without being seen from the street, we are hoping these cameras are going to help us catch some of the people breaking in and hopefully put an end to some of the costly damage."
The school's continued problems of this sort had led them to install a twenty four camera surveillance system about a month before this latest incident. The school had wisely layed out their camera system so that all the entrances to the campus had a camera covering it. When they reviewed the footage from this new security camera system, they were pleased with the results. It was discovered that they had clear video of the man recorded as he was walking down the sidewalk of the junior high school just past midnight and again about eight minutes later another camera catches him walking near the the high school gym, this time he looks at the camera giving them a great view of his face.
Members of the school's staff were able to positively identify the intruder and turned the recorded footage over to the police. With this video evidence in hand, they arrested the twenty eight year old man and charged him with burglary and criminal damage. Superintendent Woodall said that the suspect was allegedly looking for money. Nothing valuable was taken, but it allegedly cost the school twenty five hundred dollars to repair the damage done by this vandal.
Woodall said he is happy that the security camera system has already turned in positive results as the district attempts to halt what several school officials have called "senseless" break ins. The school district believes that as news of the surveillance cameras monitoring the campus spreads, the vandalism and break ins will slow down or stop altogether.
