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06.07

Creating a Campus Security Sensor and Sensor System Network Test and Training Facility

By James Gover, Angela R. Gover, Douglas Melton and Robert Swanson

The effects of campus crime victimization can be classified in terms of the direct impact it has on the lives of students, parents, and university faculty and staff; and the indirect impact it has due to fear of crime. Because the fear of campus crime can have serious consequences on behavior and well-being, that fear is perhaps as important as campus crime itself.

Two major classes of crimes occur on college campuses. One is the low-probability, multiple-death incident, such as the extreme tragedy that occurred on the Virginia Tech University campus in April 2007. Similar to a terrorism event, the consequences, such as fear, are wide-spread and long-lasting. The second class of crime on college campuses — robbery, sexual assault, battery, theft, burglary or fraud — has a much higher frequency of occurrence compared to terrorist crime victimization. The second class of crime is a day-to-day issue affecting the lives of college students. Although this type of crime rarely results in death, students who are victimized by criminal acts may experience negative mental health consequences, such as anxiety, depression, reduced self-esteem, increased stress, and various physical health consequences. These adverse consequences are life disrupting and impede college students’ academic progress.

The Reality of Campus Crime

Campus crime is a serious issue for current university students, parents of prospective students, campus law enforcement personnel, and the campus community as a whole including faculty and staff (Jennings, Gover, & Pudrzynska, 2007). Early research on campus crime determined that a high proportion of students living in dormitories led to higher campus crime rates, whereas the proximity of the campus to urban areas with high unemployment rates resulted in higher campus crime rates. Larger student populations and lower scholastic quality also contributed to higher crime rates. Studies have shown that alcohol and drug use increase students’ risk for violent victimization, including sexual assault, and other crimes that are committed on college campuses.

Empirical research has documented the rates of crime and violence on college campuses. One national study reported that 23 percent of the college students surveyed were victimized by crime on campus (Fisher, Sloan, Cullen, & Lu, 1998). A more recent study reported similar findings. Out of a sample of 564 undergraduate students at a large southeastern university, 22 percent of the respondents had already been victims of at least one type of crime (robbery, sexual assault, battery, theft, burglary or fraud) since enrolling at the university (Jennings, Gover, & Pudrzynska, 2007). In addition to being at risk for crime and victimization, college students are thought to be at a higher risk for certain kinds of crime, such as sexual assault, compared to young adults of the same age in the general population (Fisher, Sloan, Cullen, & Lu, 1998). In addition, research has established that:

1. College campuses are not areas insulated from crime, as once believed.
    

2. Fear of crime and rates of victimization are disconnected. For example, female students have a greater fear of crime than male students, but males have higher rates of victimization than females.
    

3. Self reports of victimization may grossly underestimate by as much as a factor of 20 the true rates of campus crime.

Fear of Crime

Collectively, the fear of day-to-day crime on a university campus, especially at night and particularly by women, may well have more of an impact on students’ lives than the reality of crime — with the exception being the terrorist event such as the horrific tragedy at Virginia Tech University. However, the violence at Virginia Tech is likely to instill fear in female college students throughout the entire United States for several years because much of the violence was directed toward female students, and women already feel more vulnerable to criminal acts on campus than men. Criminological research shows that as many as 70 percent of the women on college campuses substantially constrain their behavior because of their fear of crime, particularly their fear of sexual victimization (Jennings, Gover, & Pudrzynska, 2007).

Both perceived risk (a cognitive assessment of the risk of victimization) and fear (the emotional reaction to risk or other factors) of sexual assault are important predictors of fear of robbery and assault for both men and women. Findings indicate that fear of sexual assault is the strongest predictor of fear of crime for women and perceived risk is the strongest predictor for men (Lane, Gover, & Dahod, in press). Since male students base their fear of victimization on a cognitive assessment of risk, publication of university crime statistics and effective crime prevention behaviors should help reduce fear of victimization among males. Making female students feel more at ease on a college campus is a difficult task because females’ fear levels are much greater than their perceived risk of the crimes.

Requirements for an Effective Campus Security System

Universities have dealt with campus crime using very low tech responses: campus lighting, cameras in parking lots displayed on closed circuit TV monitors, escorts at night, reduction of hiding places for criminals, increased campus police presence, and so on. These responses offer early 20th century technology as a solution to late 20th and early 21st century problems.

A well-designed campus security system must satisfy several criteria:

1. It must be capable of early detection of the terrorist event and day-to-day campus crime, and make a quick assessment of the magnitude of the crime.
    

2. It must provide rapid and effective intervention measures for both classes of criminal events and the magnitude of the intervention must be proportional to the propagation potential of the offense.
    

3. It must be capable of assuring students that they are protected so their fear of crime or terrorism does not cause them to constrain their behavior in ways that do not serve their best educational, social and psychological interests.
    

4. Its capabilities must be so widely understood that it serves as a deterrent to both terrorists and day-to-day offenders. While the lack of escape is unlikely to deter psychopaths, the fact they cannot succeed in commission of the crime may deter them.
    

5. It must not unnecessarily obstruct the movement of people or create a threatening environment for people who are not intent upon harming society and/or facilities.
    

6. It must: detect, identify and track the movement of people; identify hostile behavior; identify those whose consumption of alcohol or drugs increases their vulnerability as victims or as perpetrators of crime; detect, identify and track the movement of automobiles and other means of campus transit; and detect threatening materials (e.g., explosives, highly combustible materials, guns, gun-fire, explosions, knives, radioactive materials, biological agents, chemical agents, illegal drugs, etc., that are inside the geometrical boundaries protected by the security system).
    

7. Only those who volunteer may be protected by the system.

Today’s low-tech campus security systems meet few of the above criteria. One may also note that a security system that meets the above criteria would also be applicable to many other settings where a secure environment is needed and it could serve as a test-bed for new threat sensor technology.

Advanced Wireless Technology

There are many new applications of wireless devices under development that could be used in campus security applications. In many of these, the sensors in the network serve not only as sensors, but also serve as transmitters and receivers, and perform data analysis.

1. Light fixtures in campus buildings as well as student housing can contain a wireless node with sensors that serve as smoke, fire and security detectors while providing Internet connectivity to other sensor nodes in the campus building. Networked light fittings are capable of tracking people and equipment in a campus building or preventing theft from a campus building.
    

2. Automobiles driven by students, faculty and staff to and from campus can be fitted with smart sensors that will call emergency services in the event of an accident, theft or forceful entry. RFIDs and campus cameras can make a record of every vehicle that enters or leaves campus.
    

3. Student, faculty and staff presence on campus can be transmitted by RFID wireless links as is done in a Tokyo private school which uses wireless networks to track its students.
    

4. RFID tags can be embedded in students’ high-value personal belongings (e.g., laptop computer, cellular telephone).
    

5. Multiple acoustic sensors located throughout a campus can locate the position of a gun shot, perform a spectral analysis to determine the type of gun, perform a visual scan to locate the offender and automatically lock doors from outside entry by offenders as well as constrain the exit of offenders.
    

6. Small wireless sensors that communicate with each other and that can detect illegal drugs, alcohol, chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, as well vibration and sound, can be located throughout a campus.
    

7. Sensors the size of grains of salt can be added to paint and turn campus building surfaces into motion, smoke and security systems.
    

8. Campus sensors can be networked in an interlocking web in which sensor data travel a short distance to another sensor node. If one node becomes inoperable, the system will find an alternate path for the communication; therefore, the network can be self-organizing and self-healing.
    

9. Each student can be issued a special cellular telephone which not only serves as a telephone, but serves as a security warning device. For example, if a student signaled that he or she were being victimized, a camera could be activated that would provide independent confirmation and, if confirmed, alarms and lights would be activated and campus security personnel dispatched to the site of the offense.

Sensor Research

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Energy (DOE) and DOE’s weapons’ laboratories and other federal agencies continue to fund universities, national laboratories and private entities to research new sensors and sensor network concepts. Much of this research could potentially be useful for the design of a campus security system; however, much of the innovation coming from universities lacks the proof of utility required for commercialization.

A test facility is needed in which new sensor designs and sensor networks can be integrated, tested and used for training on the use of sensor networks. This facility would provide an environment for examining the interplay between various means of sensing, and measuring and comparing the effectiveness of various sensors and sensor networks. This test facility would also serve as a personnel training facility for cities and other entities planning to implement sophisticated security sensor networks. An appropriate location for such a facility is the campus of a technical university located in a city with a high crime rate, so that the university technical staff and faculty can conduct tests, and the sensor system can serve as a campus security network.

Recommendations

It is recommended that funds be appropriated in FY2008 for a company to work cooperatively with the DHS, Sandia National Laboratories, the federal laboratory responsible for engineering of nuclear weapons security systems; and a university, to collaboratively design a facility that meets DHS needs for a sensor and security network test and training facility, as well as at the university’s needs for a campus security system. The university will operate the facility as a for-hire sensor and sensor network system test and training facility, and the system will serve as a model for campus security systems around the world and permit universities to provide the secure environment for students expected by their parents.

References

• Jennings, W.G., Gover, A.R., & Pudrzynska, D. (2007, in press). "Are Institutions of Higher Learning Safe? A Descriptive Study of Campus Safety Issues and Self-Reported Campus Victimization among Male and Female College Students," Journal of Criminal Justice Education

• Lane, J., Gover, A.R., Dahod, S. (2007, in press). "Fear of Violent Crime among Men and Women on Campus: The Impact of Perceived Risk and Fear of Sexual Assault, Violence and Victims"

• Fisher, B.S., Sloan, J.J., Cullen, F.T., & Lu, C. (1998). "Crime in the Ivory Tower: The Level and Sources of Student Victimization," Criminology, 36, pp. 671-710.

• "America’s tragedy," The Economist, 21 April 2007, p. 11.

• "A world of connections: A special report on telecoms," The Economist, 28 April 2007. [www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_JDPNDRR]

Dr. James Gover is an IEEE Fellow and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Kettering University in Flint, Mich.

Dr. Angela R. Gover is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Public Affairs of the University of Colorado in Denver, Colo.

Dr. Douglas Melton is an IEEE Member and Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Kettering University in Flint, Mich.

Dr. Robert Swanson is Chief Operating Officer of KTECH, an employee-owned technical services and products firm, in Albuquerque, N.M.

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org. Opinions expressed are the author's.