White Paper
5 Must-Have
Emergency Notification System
Crime Prevention Tools
5 Must-Have ENS crime prevention tools
Table of Contents
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
TipSafe Anonymous Tipping System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Automated Security Alerts & Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
AlertManager Mobile App . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Regroup Mass Notification for IPAWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Interactive Polling (Two-Way Voice Alert) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Regroup Mass Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
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Introduction
Many sources around the Internet seem to agree with Wikipedia
when they define an Emergency Notification System (ENS) as “a
method of facilitating the one-way dissemination or broadcast
of messages to one or many groups of people, alerting them
to a pending or existing emergency situation.”
While Wiki gives a rather simplistic description of today’s
emergency notification systems that is not entirely accurate,
it does describe the primary motivating factor behind most
organizations’ decision to implement a system.
In this white paper, we share five Emergency Notification
System tools that can help your organization strengthen crime
prevention efforts and can even help prevent an incident from
happening in the first place.
Did you know?
Many of the tools and
functionalities of a cuttingedge ENS like Regroup Mass
Notification can be leveraged
throughout all four phases of the
emergency management cycle
— including the prevention/
mitigation phase?
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5 Must-Have ENS crime prevention tools
1. TipSafe Anonymous Tipping System
TipSafe
TipSafe offers a means of
proactively gathering situational
intelligence by empowering
bystanders and witnesses
to safely and easily send
anonymous text messages from
their mobile phone.
Once a tipster presses send,
their anonymous tip is instantly
forwarded to designated
personnel and public safety
officials in a variety of formats,
across multiple devices to reach
them wherever they are at the
time an incident is reported.
All too often following a tragedy such as an active shooter, the
ensuing investigation reveals that other people knew ahead of
time about the shooter’s idea and/or plan to attack. However,
many individuals will not step forward with that life-saving
information unless their identity is protected.
Time-critical information can then be acted upon immediately
to prevent an incident from happening or catch someone who
has already committed a crime.
Anonymous tips have proven to be an effective crime-fighting
tool. Community-based Crime Stoppers USA proudly boasts
an average conviction rate of approximately 95 percent on
the cases solved through a tip through the program.
Now, with TipSafe, individual institutions — be it a state/local
government, business, campus, school or hospital — can use
anonymous tips to bolster crime prevention efforts and better
safeguard employees and stakeholders.
“Police applauded the actions of a few students in southern
Indiana after two teenagers were taken into custody for
reportedly making multiple school shooting threats.“
(Campus Safety Magazine, September 2015)
A joint US Secret Service and Department of Education
report found that in 93 percent of cases, the shooter
exhibited odd behavior beforehand. And 80 percent of
the time, someone else knew what was about to happen
or had clues.
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1. TipSafe Anonymous Tipping System
2. Automated
Security Alerts & Notifications
Automated content triggered messaging gives you the ability
to determine and program, in advance, the parameters that
should automatically trigger a notification, such as time, events,
activities, etc. When Regroup Mass Notification is integrated
with existing systems and processes, delivery of critical alerts
is dramatically accelerated to ensure people are alerted in
time for action to be taken.
The following use case illustrates how automated security
alerts could help prevent a tragedy from occurring:
XYZ Institution has integrated their Emergency Notification
System with other security and mass communications
technology, including the building’s alarm system, public
address (PA) system and digital signage. Due to elevated
security concerns following threats made by a newly-terminated
employee, the exterior basement door is to remain locked
and secured at all times.
One week after enhanced security protocols were put into
place, the alarm goes off signifying an intruder. According
to the preconfigured rules and protocols established for this
scenario, the alarm system triggers a security alert through
Regroup Mass Notification:
•A pre-recorded message instructing employees to shelterin-place is announced over the PA system and displayed
on digital signage
•Building security and local law enforcement officials are
notified of the breach
•Emergency alerts are sent to employees and stakeholders’
cell phones
Automated Security Alerts and Notifications can be
implemented for a wide range of critical functions, such as
alerting IT personnel to an attempted security breach and
initiating evacuation protocols in the event of a fire or chemical
spill.
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5 Must-Have ENS crime prevention tools
3. AlertManager Mobile App
Regroup’s AlertManager mobile app facilitates effective,
two-way communication via email, text, text-to-speech and
push notifications from mobile devices. Having the ability to
leverage push notifications is critical during times when there
is weak connectivity, low bandwidth or other disruptions in
communications to ensure life-saving alerts are delivered.
Creating QuickPost buttons in advance that correspond with
established event-specific emergency response protocols
would empower users to tap the corresponding QuickPost
button during a crisis to quickly trigger integrated third-party
security and mass communications systems.
For example, imagine this:
You have just pulled into the parking lot of your institution when
you notice three armed men walking towards the entrance of
the building. What could you do to quickly alert authorities
without leaving your car?
In the above scenario, Regroup’s AlertManager would
empower you — with a tap on your smartphone — to trigger
alerts to all of the security and mass communications systems
and channels that have been designated for that type of crisis
such as:
•Access Control Systems
•PA systems
•Digital signage
•Alert Beacons
•Cell Phones
•Sirens
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AlertManager Mobile App
4. Regroup Mass Notification
for IPAWS
When life-saving information is transmitted quickly across
multiple channels, it will reach more people and thus a greater
number will be able to get out of harm’s way when a threat
exists. The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS)
provides alerting authorities with internet-based capabilities
for issuing critical public alerts and warnings from a single
portal to multiple public alerting systems.
However, IPAWS is a public warning system, not a public
notification system. The IPAWS infrastructure acts as a gateway
to receive and authenticate geographically-targeted alerts and
warnings, but can only be accessed via IPAWS compliant CAP
(Common Alerting Protocol) Alert Origination software — such
as Regroup Mass Notification for IPAWS.
In one of their blogs, the National Crime Prevention Council
gave several examples of how IPAWS helped prevent a tragedy
from happening or from becoming much worse., such as:
•Local public safety officials in Boston alerted the public to
shelter-in-place while authorities searched for a suspect
in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing
•An AMBER Alert sent to Minneapolis resulted in a teenager
leading police to safely recover an abducted child
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5 Must-Have ENS crime prevention tools
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Regroup Mass Notification for IPAWS
5. Interactive Polling
(Two-Way Voice Alert)
Increasing situational intelligence by leveraging the eyes
and ears of mobile users will enhance decision-making and
response efforts during a crisis; which in turn could prevent
an incident from happening or keep a bad situation from
becoming much, much worse.
Interactive polling would facilitate the sharing of on-the-scene
intelligence by empowering your stakeholders to easily share
geo-location information, pictures and real-time information
as a situation develops.
During a life-threatening situation, such as an active shooter,
where there is an even greater need for increased situational
intelligence, having interactive polling that allows your
stakeholders to provide more than just a yes-no answer will
facilitate more effective response efforts.
For example:
•Determine the status of stakeholders (e.g., safe, injured)
•Allow stakeholders to record on-the-scene reports
•Establish and track the location of the suspect(s)
Your ability to make sound, timely decisions can literally affect
the lives and well-being of your stakeholders. Those decisions
can also impact the ability of response agencies to do their
jobs. Real-time interactive polling can give you the edge you
need to make every decision count.
Example
Knowing
location of
the wounded
Injuries treated
on time
Lives Saved
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5 Must-Have ENS crime prevention tools
Regroup Mass Notifications
Being prepared to prevent an incident from happening can
save lives. But to have that ability requires that actions be
taken on your part beforehand. To prevent, one must prepare.
At Regroup, we are serious about preparedness and believe
that the ideal Emergency Notification System should have
the ability to do more than just “notify” — the system must be
versatile and robust to empower users throughout all four
phases of the emergency management cycle. Including during
the ever-important prevention/mitigation phase.
To enable you to further explore how Regroup Mass Notification
can help your organization throughout all four phases of the
emergency management cycle — including the prevention/
mitigation phase — we would like to offer you a complimentary
consultation with one of our emergency communication
specialists. This will give you and your team the opportunity
to see firsthand how preparedness combined with a robust
mass communications platform can save lives.
Click here or email us at [email protected]
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409 Noe St.
San Francisco, Ca
[email protected]
855-Regroup (734-7687)
www.regroup.com