Keeping Your Staff, Animals, Supplies, and Donations Safe without Making Your Shelter Look Like a Federal Prison - Part 4

All Systems Go

Along with a good safe (or two) for donations, records, and veterinary supplies, there are more basic elements of a physically secure shelter. From locks and fences to alarm systems and video surveillance systems, there's a veritable cornucopia of security options for you to pick from, and a good consultant can suggest some that will suit your needs and price range.

While Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control is considering conversion to an electronic keypad entry system, the shelter is now guarded by an elaborate and well-designed system of locks and keys. "We sat down with the lock company to design our system of locks," says Lewis. "We have 96 doors operated by a total of five different keys, and the keys are hierarchical, so there's a master key that operates every door in the building that only I have, then there's a key that operates all the supervisors' offices, narcotic drug closets, and so on. ... The last key down operates the employees' entrance." It's a great system, Lewis says, not only because it guarantees that staff have access only to the areas they need to be in, but also because Lewis will have to change just one lock if she ever has a problem with a hostile or disgruntled employee.

In the wake of the fire that wiped out the shelter in Escondido, many shelters are revisiting their fire safety plans and plans for other disasters. Some are retrofitting older facilities to include smoke detectors and fire extinguishers; others are installing alarm systems that can detect both fires and break-ins.

Organizations that aren't at a good comfort level with the technical side of fire safety have sometimes compensated for their old buildings and lack of sprinkler systems by ensuring that a staff member is present at the facility 24 hours a day. Along with physical improvements to Escondido's setup, the new facilities will include an apartment where a staff member will live.

Staffing your facility overnight is an especially important consideration if you have night-time drop boxes for animal relinquishments. A shelter in North Carolina recently suffered a terrible tragedy when someone put a propane tank in a drop box; the tank exploded, killing five animals in the wildlife room and causing more than $10,000 in damages. But the aftermath of the explosion could have been even worse were it not for the presence of a shelter worker in the building; the employee was able to alert the fire department in time to keep the fire from spreading to the rest of the shelter.

Even with the constant presence of able staff, though, shelter managers should still do everything possible to fireproof their facilities. Fire extinguishers should be readily available, fire escape plans should be posted throughout the shelter, and all employees should undergo regular tests of fire and emergency preparedness. A shelter's disaster plan should be revisited biannually in order to ensure that it remains effective and up-to-date.

Lights, Camera, Action

Catching criminals on candid camera isn't just for banks anymore. Cameras can provide an added sense of safety in shelters with evening or night-time staff; employees can use them to check out areas they'd hesitate to walk into unprepared. In Fort Wayne, cameras that survey the grounds put the night-time dispatcher more at ease when she's working alone in the wee hours.

Top-of-the-range security cameras are extremely expensive, says Johnson, but the Marin Humane Society staff have found that a mid-level camera works just as well for their purposes, since employees mainly need to know if someone is loitering outside the shelter or if an animal has been dropped off outside the facility. "Our camera, it can maybe tell us whether the person is a man or a woman and give us an idea of what kind of car they drove, but the main thing is that we can see if they've dropped off or abandoned an animal outside," says Johnson. "We don't spend a lot of time following up on this - we'd rather they abandon it here than out in the country somewhere." Outdoor lighting at Marin also makes the environment safer for staff and provides the illumination without which the surveillance cameras would be useless.

Installation of cameras has essentially eliminated the theft of animals from many organizations, including the Montreal SPCA and the Nevada Humane Society. If you do use video surveillance, make sure the central location of the system is also secure. If your video camera is located above your safe and catches every detail of the felons who break in and bust the safe open, you may think you've got the crime almost solved - but if, after stealing the contents of the safe, the thieves proceed down the hall to the taping system and steal the tape too, you're no better off, says Barnoti. Make sure your systems are what they're cut out to be; whatever company or individual sets up your alarm or surveillance system can help ensure it's well-designed and kept somewhere inaccessible.

The installation of security cameras may be greeted with some reluctance by staff, at least initially. People who are trustworthy like to be trusted, and the presence of cameras may cause some hurt feelings. But at the Capital Humane Society in Lincoln, Nebraska, where cameras were installed after an employee had stolen an animal from the night drop area, those hurt feelings quickly dissolved into gratitude.

"We wanted to make sure the public knew that we don't put up with funny stuff going on here; it was a public trust issue," says Executive Director Bob Downey. "[Some employees] didn't like it. But then, literally less than an hour after the surveillance system had been installed, one of our staff was assaulted by a member of the public, and the camera caught the whole thing. It went to court, and the conviction was a slam dunk because the camera had caught all the details."

The system has also disproved a fake worker's comp claim, Downey says, as well as a falsified injury claim by a citizen. The cameras have even helped the shelter counter the claims of irate citizens complaining that their animals have been wrongly euthanized. "It's happened a couple of times," Downey says, "where they've said, ‘I came in at such-and-such a time and talked to this employee about reclaiming my dog, and now you've killed it,' and then when we talk to the employee they denied having spoken to the person." It's the sort of thing that could easily disintegrate into a he said/she said fiasco, if not for the camera system: Staff reviewed tapes of the times the people had supposedly come in to claim their animals - and found they'd never even been in the building.

The success of the cameras has helped convince the staff that having "Big Brother" overseeing the shelter isn't all bad. While no one likes to feel spied on, the safety benefits tend to outweigh the negative aspects. If you don't steal - and don't pick your nose - the camera won't cause you any problems at all.

Off-Site Options and Special Cases

For animals seized from fighting rings or for those being held pending the outcome of cruelty cases, security is of particular concern. Depending on the circumstances of the case and the condition and disposition requirements of the animals involved, some shelters foster such animals out into specially screened and secure homes; most others keep them in private, secure areas of the shelter where members of the public can't gain access to them. At the Prince George's County Animal Shelter, for example, seized animals and animals quarantined for biting are kept in a separate building, and citizens can't be in the building unless they're escorted by a uniformed officer.

In some cases, routine security measures won't be enough. Some shelters contract with security agencies or off-duty police officers when they have a particular need, such as after a major fundraising event or during a dog fighting investigation. Police officers or a private security company can drive by at regular intervals during the night, station personnel on-site, or simply park a security vehicle near the entrance of the shelter to let potential burglars know the place is under surveillance. If you do contract with security companies or officers, it's worthwhile to find out whether they have worked with shelters in the past; it helps if they understand some of the risks animal protection agencies face.

At WHS in Washington, D.C., thefts of animals rescued from fighting situations have diminished since the shelter began housing animals off-site. "We used to keep the dog fighting seizures at the city shelter," says Monsma, "but the city told us we could no longer do that, so we've been renting space out of town for those dogs, and that's a secret location so they won't get stolen. ... We just tell people who ask that the dogs aren't here and we won't tell them where they are. We've been really good about that secret. ... It's a small world and if one person figures out where the dogs are, then the whole city's going to know."

If you do place seized animals in off-site housing, you must have explicit and carefully worded contracts with any other agencies or citizens involved, says Barnoti, whose shelter handled a heartbreaking case of horse abuse and used off-site facilities to house the animals. "It was really terrible," says Barnoti. "When we seized the horses, they couldn't stand on their feet because their hooves were so overgrown, and we had to struggle to get them out of their stalls - they were prisoners of their own manure." The SPCA took on $60,000 worth of expenses to treat and house the horses, only to have the judge levy a mere $500 in fines before ordering the horses returned to their owner.

It's a situation all too familiar to many shelter personnel, but it's even more difficult to handle when your agency has been aided by outsiders who've become attached to the abused and neglected animals they've been fostering. "We end up looking like the bad guy, because the people say, ‘What do you mean you're returning them?'" says Barnoti. "And we have to be respectful of the law, even if we don't like the outcome; we don't accomplish anything by playing Robin Hood. So we have to get fosterers to sign very serious documents agreeing that if the court throws the case out, they will abide by the judgment."

Regardless of whether or not you decide to keep special-case animals off-site or on, with every security procedure or system you implement, you must walk the fine line between protecting your animals and staff and making the shelter seem unfriendly. "Unless I wanted to put in a huge moat with alligators and an impregnable electrified fortress fence, I can't really see what else we can do," says Asher, who feels her shelter has found the proper balance. "With too many cameras and fences and barbed wire, you get that prison feeling; when you're trying to be open and warm and welcoming, you can't have armed people marching around. I think we've made a pretty good compromise with security and surveillance and locks in appropriate places, so it's better than it's ever been before."

Source: By Carrie Allan AnimalSheltering.org