911 inform Gives Religious Congregations Comfort to Worship With Peace of Mind
Violent crime against religious institutions in the United States is on a shocking upward trajectory. FBI statistics put incidents in churches, temples, synagogues, and other faith centers up almost 35% since 2014.
This rise in abuse against faith-based organizations has led to more vandalism, arson, property damage, and terrorism than our country has ever seen. In today’s age of social media, many of these incidents that would have remained local news stories are now seen by millions worldwide, leading to fear and unease of practicing faith.
All faith-based institutions around the country constantly remain in a high-threat environment. Leaders want their students, members, and faculty to feel safe while worshiping. Also, faith leaders are hesitant to lock down during services.
Frequent security challenges faith-based institutions face:
- –A 911 call from a parking lot or community room will typically not alert staff and faculty that a distress call has occurred. They will not know until sirens arrive at the property.
- –Detection of Weapons – handguns and long guns.
- –Facial Recognition of possible terrorists, sex offenders, or unwelcome visitors.
- –Spatial Recognition – recognize unusual activity (such as leaving a backpack unattended for X number of minutes or climbing a wall on the property).
- –Broadcasting – Alerts potential threats throughout their security network (a bomb threat would let other faith-based centers in the area know there is a bomb threat). Alerts are sent via SMS or email (or both) and can support over 400 languages.
- –Smart Building Controls – In the event of an incident, they want their security team or first responders to be able to control the building (access control, strobes, PA announcements, IP camera viewing).
- –Compliance with Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act – Federal Laws regarding MLTS and providing a more precise location of 911 callers.
How will 911inform satisfy these potential challenges without disrupting regular services and burdening leadership with extra workloads managing all these services? The answer lies within 911inform’s ability to streamline and integrate into one SaaS solution.
911inform presents its customers with a 3-layered solution to provide each congregation with the right amount of protection they need.
#1 The first level is the most fundamental layer of security protection, Community Protection. When a faith-based organization chooses 911inform to heighten occupant safety, the first step is for 911inform to micro-geofence the entire property. Micro-geofencing takes the property’s buildings, grounds, athletic fields, etc., and creates a virtual perimeter around your physical location.
The geofence works with the 911inform software and lets property occupants use the app from their mobile phones to send alerts in an emergency. With the geofence in place, first responders know exactly where the emergency signal initiated from.
Alerting technologies in the first level include:
- -911 Calling
- -Medical Emergency
- -Lockdown
- -Silent Alarm
- -Active Shooter
- -Fire
- -Shelter in Place
- -Bomb Threat
- #2 Facility Protection is the second layer of security in the 911inform Platform. 911inform provides a gateway device that integrates all access controls, IP cameras, strobes, turnstiles. Partners like Sentry Security, the exclusive Midwest provider of 911inform, will attempt to integrate the gateway device with current IP cameras, strobes, access controls, and turnstiles even if another party installed them. Once combined, all security equipment will then work within the 911inform software platform. If an alert is raised to a 911 center and first responders such as law, fire, and EMS can access building images, floor plans, door control access, and best routes to take. Making sure first responders are as informed as possible leads to quicker response times and more lives saved.
- #3 The final layer of the 911inform System takes violent threat detection and suppression to the next level. Our AI driven software provides facial recognitions, weapons detection, license plate recognition, and zone detection. Once a threat has been detected, authorities are alerted immediately without the need for a human to sound the alarm. If you are currently located in a high-threat area or have previously fallen victim to a violent crime against your place of worship, stop it before it happens with our complete three layer system.
All of these features working together provide faith-based organizations and their worshippers’ peace of mind that whatever security challenges they may face, the 911inform mobile app is just a button push away from alerting first responders, members of the congregation and faculty, and other faith organizations in the area.
The 911inform SaaS Solution facilitates better first response times, better situational awareness, and immediate notification to onsite security. Humans can only monitor so many camera feeds (and indeed not 24/7), whereas the AI can monitor all cameras at all times.
911inform applies to any company that wants to enhance the security of their campus, both indoor and outdoor, for their students, employees, or visitors. The 911inform platform also completely satisfies both Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act, two federal laws aimed at making it easier to call for emergency services and for first responders to know a more precise emergency location.
There may be a substantial FCC Penalty (and potential legal liabilities) for non-compliance with Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act. Now is the time to determine if your organization’s multi-line telephone system is compliant with these laws.
REFERENCES
- Jake Silverman, Security Director, Jewish Federation of Orlando
- Stephanie Viegas, Security Director, Jewish Federation of Greater Miami
