The GSN Homeland Security Awards were created to honour the dedicated government officials at federal, state, and local levels who have created and executed effective security programmes across the country, along with leading vendors in IT and physical security that have researched, developed, and supplied innovative security solutions during the past year.

“With a track-record of embracing technological innovation to improve police services and ensure community safety, the OCSO has successfully leveraged the Avigilon HD Surveillance System to achieve an outstanding 90 percent reduction in altercations to dramatically improve inmate safety and overall security at the detention center, making it this year’s clear winner.” Said Jacob Goodwin, editor-in-chief at GSN

The Avigilon HD Surveillance System delivers complete awareness in all prison areas, replacing the need for security guards in each cell pod thereby saving the detention center more than $10 million annually. The OCSO can cut investigation times from days to seconds to expedite investigations for quick and accurate resolution and can now provide clear, irrefutable evidence to the District Attorney’s office, which they were not able to do with its previous analog-based system.

“One of the greatest advantages of the Avigilon HD Surveillance System is that it delivers real, useable proof to help resolve conflicts between inmates or refute false claims,” said Captain David Baisden. “At the same time, Avigilon’s advanced features and ease-of-management allowed us to get the system up and running in record time to reduce installation, training, and overall maintenance costs.”

“Sheriff John Whetsel’s success with the Avigilon HD Surveillance System at the OCSO is a great example of why law enforcement agencies around the world are transitioning to a new standard in surveillance that is easily achieved through the power and performance of Avigilon’s high definition video surveillance solution and abandoning the marginal effectiveness of legacy analog video,” said Alexander Fernandes, president and CEO at Avigilon. “We are honoured to play a key role in the OCSO success story.”