According to the US Department of Justice, the rate of trespassing victimization increased from 2020 to 2021.
The dictionary meaning of the word trespassing is to enter someone's land or property without permission. Trespassing can happen in residential, commercial, or even government properties. For security professionals, the crucial point to note is that while the act of entering a premise itself doesn’t necessarily become an issue, it can lead to other, more serious crimes.
According to the US Department of Justice, the rate of trespassing victimization increased from 2020 to 2021. Households experienced 11.7 million property victimizations in 2021. Property crime includes burglary, trespassing, motor vehicle theft, and other types of household theft.
“The rate of property victimization in 2021 was 90.3 victimizations per 1,000 households, which was not statistically different from the 2020 rate,” said a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. “The rate of trespassing increased from 4.1 to 5.1 per 1,000 households. The rate of other household theft declined during this period, from 76.6 to 72.1 per 1,000. From 2020 to 2021, there was no statistically significant change in the burglary or motor vehicle theft rate.”
The data stresses an increased need to monitor trespassing. But traditional forms of security surveillance are no longer adequate to manage this problem. Fortunately, modern video analytics solutions provide customers with more control for this.
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Real-time detection and mitigation
The most important step to mitigate trespassing-related threats is to have a way to stop the act in real time. The proactive response will allow businesses and residential property owners to prevent theft, loss, and injury.
Video analytic solutions can help in this, offering perimeter protection and real-time alerts when someone enters an area. Today’s analytics solutions allow detailed customization, allowing users to set different parameters on who can and cannot enter at different times of the day.
“A human operator defines the rules that reflect what is “normal” and configures alerts to be triggered when objects or activities outside the scope of “normal” are detected,” explains Lizzi Goldmeier from Briefcam
in a blog post. “Not only can operators be notified when any person enters a defined area, they can be alerted when a specific person enters that area through the use of face matching technology and watchlists. Operators have the ability to upload watchlists of video or digital images to the video analysis program, which enables the software to automatically monitor all camera feeds for face matches.”
When the system detects a person that matches the watchlists, it can alert the security operators, who can, in turn, decide to take the next steps. This will ensure that any potential security incident is prevented early.
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Post-incident investigation
When investigating an incident, you would need proper evidence for the best results. Time is of the essence at this stage, which means you need the right information as soon as possible. You cannot waste time searching through hours of footage to find the incident.
Fortunately, video analytics allows search incidents based on parameters like the color of a person’s clothing, things, or actions. Algorithms process unstructured data to categorize and index objects in a video as metadata. This can be searched, configured to provide alerts, and compiled to provide comprehensive information on an incident.
“Video content analytics technology processes video, identifies objects (such as people or vehicles) in the video footage, and classifies and indexes the video object metadata so that footage can be easily and quickly searched and analyzed,” explains Goldmeier. “Hours or days of footage can be combed in a matter of minutes, with operators filtering video to focus the video search and show only people or objects that fit a specific description.
“This empowers security teams to extract crucial details, gather evidence, and accelerate investigations. Did the trespasser steal medication? Where did they go after they left the pharmacy, and how did they move about the hospital? Video content analytic software can help the hospital uncover those answers and implement measures to ensure it does not happen in the future.”
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Gathering insights from behavioral patterns
While real-time detection and data for investigation are essential, the insights that analytics provide in the longer term can help businesses develop a better security plan altogether. For instance, if security teams can identify a specific source through which trespassers enter, they can take steps to improve the security there.
Behavioral patterns trespassers will also help you understand what kind of people pose a threat. For example, a public place will have people entering and exiting at any point in time. But certain behavioral traits may differentiate high-risk people from others.
Video analytic solutions can help customers access such data in formats that are easy to understand and act on. Eventually, these will help customers reduce the risks and create a more secure premise.