Having security cameras installed in schools to help watch over our children has begun to be accepted as a good idea in recent years. Considering the ratio of students to administrators and teachers in most schools, it's not really possible to actually keep an eye on all of the kids all the time. Several cameras can be monitored by just one or two technicians to cover a much larger area.
At a high school in Charlotte, North Carolina a student from a near by middle school snuck on to school grounds and decided to spray paint graffiti on the school building. Unfortunately for this young man, the high school's security cameras caught the whole incident and digitally recorded it. When the surveillance footage was reviewed, the fourteen year old boy was clearly identified and the footage was provided to the police. With the help of this evidence, the police detained the boy responsible and charged him with second-degree criminal mischief and he could also face a charge of unlawful application of graffiti.
This particular event wasn't the first time that the high school's surveillance camera system helped the police and school administrators identify and apprehend a perpetrator. A few months before the graffiti incident the high school's camera system also helped to catch a student who was suspected of calling in a bomb threat at the school. The camera system has been successful not only with criminal activity, but has also been very helpful with behavioral problems. The security cameras have proven to be effective at catching bullying or misbehavior, they've also been very useful in refuting and confirming claims made by the pupils.
"The cameras are awesome," said one Community Service police officer. "They can capture things on real-time, and allow us to look around and zoom in on things very easily." The kind of camera that he's referring to is called a pan/tilt/zoom camera, and it has the ability to moved side to side, up and down and zoom in or out, all of these functions can be operated remotely through the DVR where the footage is recorded. This pan/tilt/zoom (also known as a PTZ) camera is just one type of camera that is a part of the school's security camera system, many of their cameras are equipped with a wide angle lens to allow the camera to view an entire room from a single angle.
An intelligently planned out security camera system, such as at this high school, can have a dramatic effect on both student's behavior and safety. Once people in the area realize that their actions are being recorded then they tend to be on their best behavior. The successful application of these cameras at this high school has caused several other schools in the area to install similar systems, hopefully it's a trend that will catch on in a much broader scale.
Source: ezinearticles.com