Computers stolen from a Canberran college

I know the police do not receive the alarm condition directly, that it goes to a private security company. But what I meant (and should have said more clearly) is the alram system should have been capable of sending the condition back to the security company, who in turn would (if they can’t get there qucikly enough) alert local police.
It’s not like its without precedent. Afterall, the fire alarms at Lanyon High go off all the time in the middle of the night, with the fire brigade there in under ten minutes. Wouldn’t it be logical to have a similar system with the security alarms? The schools are government property afterall. Theft and vandlism occure more often and therfore with more cost than fires at schools. Hopefully if the system is not already in place for security companies to contact police if government property near a police station is under threat, th facility will be introduced in the future.

I will say though that why is the ACT Government paying for private security firms to monitors schools if those irms can’t actually provide adequete responce to act on break ins? Are there any advantages to having a private firm handling security over a direct link to police?

and as someone else said – even 10 minutes is plenty of time, if you have it planned out.

asp – there are ways to avoid setting off motion activated alarms.

Insurance of IT equipment in ACT Govt Schools is a joke. After a spate of B&E’s across various CIT site’s, and years of bun fighting with the insurer CIT finally got some reimbursment for all the stolen items. I finally got a G5 Mac back on my desk. Then the insurer decided they would not insure any IT equipment unless the whole IT Fleet had been ” data dotted ” … something about to many claims ….

It’s also worth noting that many local private security companies employ staff with criminal records, and kicked up a huge fuss when the ACT govt tried to restrict people who could get a security licence to those with a clean police check. Interesting.

asp – what makes you think the installed alarm system has anything to do with the police?

“Many, if not all, public schools have insurance”
That’s both true and false, Allow me to explain. All schools have building insurance which includes certain inclusions. But what pierce said is true, most insurers believe schools to be to greater risk, and therefore either won’t allow cover of contents (such as computers, cameras, science equipment) or will charge ludicrous amounts.

One big question is where were the police. Surely the school had an alarm system that is monitored and capable of informing local police. Given that the station is an eight minute walk away, officers should have been there to catch them in the act. Unless there were a dozen people doing over the college, it would take more than eight minutes to break in, much less get six bulky computers out. I know the police are under resourced, but if response times to alarms at schools aren’t good and the risk of being caught small, then there is very little to deter people from preying on schools as easy targets.

schools are easy targets, normally not much security and out of the way of everything else. The scum know there will be equipment in them all they have to do is find a way in and.. bingo.. unlikely to find police anywhere here, too easy.

So THAT’S what happend next door? (I was in ‘next door’ [ED-(Ntp)] for most of today. Explains why there was suddenly teachers and stuff trying to break open the door, to see how they got in..)

My understanding is that a lot of insurance companies won’t insure schools because they are soon as too big a risk.