Bergen County Bolsters Video Surveillance Capabilities

The Bergen County Sheriff’s Office
announced it is expanding its video surveillance network at its County
Courthouse and Jail in an effort to enhance the efficiency and recording
capabilities across its infrastructure.

The addition of
over 400 Mobotix high-resolution,
intelligent video cameras combined with IPAS VMS and Pivot3, Inc.‘s vSTAC converged shared storage and
virtual server appliances will deliver an additional layer of surveillance
coverage within the county jail. This is the third phase of the surveillance
system’s expansion and the total order represents more than 800 Mobotix
megapixel cameras and over a petabyte of Pivot3 storage.

The IPAS VMS delivers video images in various lighting conditions to allow
county officials to actively monitor video in real time, access stored video
for post-event investigations and enhance situational awareness to ensure the
safety of law enforcement. Bergen County also leverages video to address
liability issues such as slip-and-fall claims, and take advantage
of redundancy features and application failover to protect against natural
disasters and terror attacks.

The system, which marks the third phase of
the installation, extends the surveillance network to the Bergen County
prosecutor’s office to enable rapid sharing of video evidence.
Overall, the technology initiative provides an additional layer of security to
the county’s facilities and deliver cost savings of over 20% due to
the streamlining of processes between departments. Furthermore, multiple
agencies across the county are merging practices to be more effective and
simplify operations, developing further cost efficiencies across county
infrastructure.

New Mobotix cameras include the DualDome
D14, which features two lenses and two 3.1 resolution image sensors totaling a
maximum of 6.2 megapixels, and the Q24 Hemispheric camera, which is capable of
providing a complete 360-degree all-around view. Bergen County is also
leveraging the Mobotix T24 Hemispheric IP Video Door Station and the DualNight
M12, a dual-lens, day/night camera. Overall, the dual-lens and hemispheric
features built-in to the Mobotix devices allow the county to monitor more than
1,000 locations with only 400 cameras. This allows for the most coverage with
the fewest number of cameras, providing cost savings to budget
conscious government agencies.

"Throughout the Bergen County jail and
criminal justice facilities; we need clear, accurate video images in a variety
of lighting situations," said Sheriff Saudino, Bergen County sheriff’s office. "The ability of our initial
Mobotix system of 80 cameras vastly improved our video surveillance
capabilities and convinced us to expand the system to cover even more areas.
The new cameras and Pivot3 storage appliances further enhance our video system
capabilities."

"The combination of Mobotix cameras
and Pivot3 storage provides the highest quality edge-based IP video and
cost-efficient centralized storage," said Heath Gaffney, CEO, IMSYS Corporation, the systems integrator
that installed the system. "The resulting solution perfectly addresses the video surveillance needs
of the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office and illustrates the value of
high-resolution video in the criminal justice environment."