Safety Concepts Inc.

Description

Brief History A few decades ago there were really only two things required from a security air grille. One was the supply of air to and the exhaust of air from the cell. The other was sufficient structural strength to assure inmate containment. Today, however, the needs of the corrections industry have changed. Changing Needs As our society has become more violence-tolerant, there is a growing realization that merely containing the inmate and providing air exchange does not address significant new needs. Inmate violence often involves lethal weapons concealed for months or even years. This violence is often fuelled by illicit drugs that are in virtually every institution today. Costs involved in inmate suicides are far more significant than they were even just a few years ago. The security air grille is impacted by these changes. The grilles of yesterday were an invitation for suicides, an invitation for concealment of weapons and drugs and an invitation for numerous other undesirable activities. Inmates of today have more rights than their predecessors. Facilities today are more attuned to health needs of inmates. A direct result of this is the ever-increasing design requirement of air changes per hour in cells. Changing Security Air Grilles While it is a fact that some recently constructed institutions have installed bar type grilles (e.g. a death-row section of a facility in the South built in the last decade) this, indeed, is a rare exception. Bars evolved into flat plates with holes in them. Initially the holes were generally squares, a few inches across. Two trends grew from this change. One trend was to make the holes smaller. (Today many security air grilles being installed are a plate with 5/16-inch diameter holes.) The other significant trend was to retain the larger square holes but to incorporate a coarse wire mesh on the back side of the grille faceplate. Both of these types of grilles meet the basic requirements of inmate containment and air exchange. Both make it somewhat more difficult to use the grille to commit suicide. Both make it more difficult to conceal drugs or weapons behind the grille face. While progress has been made, problems remain. As the grille designs have become more sophisticated, the creative juices of the inmates have been and are being tapped. Inmates are still hiding weapons and drugs behind grille faces because these grilles do not block direct passage; they simply restrict the size of the object. Inmates are still using these air grilles as the anchoring point for committing suicides. In fact, air grilles in recently constructed facilities are still the number one physical item in inmate suicides. Further to ongoing contraband concealment and suicides is the rising problem of plugging of the air grilles. This can be tracked to the increase of air changes required in the newer designs, which are a direct result of seeking to make the cell a healthier environment. Because of increased volumes of air there are increased velocities of air, in fact, objectionable velocities as far as the inmates are concerned. Consequently inmates are plugging supply air grilles.

Products & services

Similar companies nearby