Police Crime Prevention Academy supports Home Office with specialist training

The Police Crime Prevention Academy is currently working with the Home Office, providing bespoke training with a focus on crime prevention and designing out crime.

Guy Collyer, head of the Police Crime Prevention Academy, said: “We value the opportunity to assist Home Office staff in gaining a more detailed understanding of this critical work within policing.”

The Home Office is instrumental in protecting the public and keeping people safe, recently launching the second £20 million round of the Safer Streets Fund for Police and Crime Commissioners and local authorities to invest in a range of crime prevention measures across high crime areas in England and Wales.

The Police Crime Prevention Academy is part of Police Crime Prevention Initiatives, the police-owned, non-profit organisation that works on behalf of the police service throughout the UK, duly delivering a wide range of crime prevention and police demand reduction initiatives.

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Close working links

The Academy maintains close working links with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, as well as senior police officers, and is the established supplier to the police service for crime prevention learning and development.

Not only does the Academy offer a local delivery option that significantly reduces costs, but it also provides the flexibility to dovetail content into Continuing Professional Development and reflect local issues.  

The Police Crime Prevention Academy also delivers several qualifications to the private sector, working closely with local authorities and relevant specialists such as architects and planners, and offers a number of distance and virtual learning qualifications.

The Academy prides itself in keeping the quality of qualifications at a premium and the costs of its service delivery at a minimum.

ITS Products issues corner-mount adaptor for Canon mini dome cameras

Locations such as police interview rooms, custody suites, secure mental hospitals and immigration centres make special demands of integrators with the twin challenges of ensuring maximum room coverage and factoring out possible ligature points for self-harm. With this in mind, ITS Products has released an “innovative” flush corner-mount adaptor for the Canon mini dome series that allows the cameras to be installed in environments where there’s a likelihood of physical attack.

The triangular design of the new unit, combined with Canon’s wide-angle lens, delivers “as complete a view of the room as possible” and “outperforms more traditional solutions” by eliminating the blind spot usually found immediately below the camera.

ITS Products is aware that there are no Europe-wide standards on performance of cameras in these circumstances but individual countries and organisations such as National Health Trusts, police services and border control forces impose stringent criteria on optical performance, flushness of mounting and resistance to impact.

The corner adaptor configured by ITS Products for Canon’s mini dome cameras

In the UK, for example, the NPCC guidance on safe custodial detention emphasises the importance of designing out possible ligature points in any custody suite.

Installers working in high security environments will know that engineers are regularly accompanied on site by overseers to minimise the risk of tools being mislaid and appropriated by inmates. This is combined with laborious counting in and out of every item in an engineer’s toolbox.

The new adaptor is installed by fitting a mounting frame complete with an IP-rated seal in the corner of the room. The installation can be enhanced by using anti-pick mastic that further prevents any risk of ligature points. The normal outer cover of the dome is discarded so as not to produce a second lens effect while safeguarding Canon’s optical performance.

Installation is completed with three screws to secure the camera in place. Now fully integrated, the clamping bracket and dome are fitted back onto the front panel and located within the frame.

The whole installation process takes a matter of minutes which is a great advantage compared with traditional offerings in facilities that are occupied by vulnerable or potentially disruptive residents.

Appealing to facilities and risk managers

Installers will also appreciate that the mounting frame has a degree of flex which accommodates the fact that few corners form a perfect 90-degree angle.

The minimal requirement for tools will appeal to any facilities or risk manager securing a building where there is a potential for appropriation and misuse of tools by residents or inmates.

The corner unit’s dome and the camera itself remain concentric so the optical performance is not compromised and there is no change to the focal point if a PTZ camera is being used. The dome is certified to be optically correct even when used with cameras of up to 5 Megapixels.

ITS Products has anticipated the likelihood of casual vandalism and sustained physical attack on the unit by making the cast acrylic dome with a scratch-proof coating and the ability to withstand an impact specified by the IK10 rating.

Installers will be aware of the need for optically correct corner units for quality control in machine vision applications. There is also provision for an integrated audio system within the unit’s design which requires local power. A flying lead is supplied ready to connect directly to the mini dome.

Austin Freshwater, pro-imaging director for Canon UK, said: “At Canon, we strive to work with partners to develop solutions that meet specific industry needs. Our mini dome range offers customers superior image quality and functionality within compact and discreet designs. Partnering the camera with ITS provides a solution for use in demanding niche verticals that offers a greater angle of view and greater protection for end users.”