How Remote Chaperoning Can Keep People Safe

This innovative combination of technologies can reduce crime in parking garages and similar areas.

For many office workers, leaving a building late at night can be a worrisome proposition, especially in areas with a high crime rate. Unfortunately, federal statistics suggest that their concern is justified – more than 10% of property crimes occurring between 2004 and 2008 happened in parking garages.

Fortunately, a relatively recent combination of technologies, dubbed remote chaperoning, can help individuals feel (and be) much safer. Combining surveillance cameras, remote monitoring, and onsite speakers and alarms, a remote chaperoning system can guard against late-night crime, particularly in office and apartment building areas, where large and sometimes dimly-lit parking garages make workers vulnerable to crimes like mugging and carjacking.

How surveillance cameras, remote monitoring, and onsite speakers and alarms work together

With a remote chaperoning system in place, your business can safely ‘escort’ someone to their vehicle with just the click of a button. When someone wants to leave an office or building at night, they call security personnel or submit a request through a web interface and ask to be chaperoned to their car.

When the request is acknowledged, a remote monitor or an on-site security guard watches the individual as they leave through the network of security cameras, making sure they get to their car safely. If the monitor sees anything suspicious, he or she can notify onsite security, call the police, and address the situation using onsite speakers and/or an alarm.

Remote chaperoning can also be an effective tool for high-school, college, and university campuses

Whether it’s a high-school football game, a college debate tournament, or students pulling an all-nighter at the library, late-night activity on school campuses can put students and faculty at risk. This is particularly the case on college and university campuses, where many students study, work, and live. In 2016, nearly 40,000 crimes were reported at colleges and universities around the country, making campus safety a major concern.

Remote chaperoning services can do a lot to make members of the campus community feel safer while discouraging crimes like robbery, vandalism, and sexual assault. For example, in October 2017, a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was abducted from a campus parking garage and sexually assaulted – something that an effective remote chaperoning system utilizing speakers and alarms may have been able to stop.

Don’t overlook well-lit garages, smart barriers, and interior locks

While remote chaperoning is a great way to increase security, it’s far from the only measure you should take to secure a parking garage or similar area. Controlling and monitoring who goes in and who goes out of an enclosed garage is a priority. A high-quality parking gate that closes quickly to discourage tailgating is a vast improvement over gates that stay open for an extended period of time.

It’s also vital to ensure that relevant building exits remained locked from the inside during off-hours, and automated access control systems can make sure this happens consistently. Particularly bold criminals may attempt to enter through the front door of an office building and make their way to the parking garage.

Finally, while it may sound obvious, keeping parking garages and other outdoor areas well-lit is an essential step in discouraging crime. These commonsense measures, combined with an efficient remote chaperoning system, can do a lot to mitigate risk in these high-crime areas.

About POM Technologies

Since 2002, Peace of Mind Technologies has delivered over 2000 security solutions across six industries in the greater New York Metropolitan area. We’re specialists who work with you to provide comprehensive site-specific security from implementation to post-installation support. To discuss your needs, please call (212) 688-2767, email at info@pom-tec.com, or complete this contact form.