In the event of a riot or a critical incident, corrections agencies need to be able to move quickly to preserve the security of their facilities.  But, when disaster strikes, corrections personnel and other first responders can be slowed down by what they don't know about a situation, like the layout of the cell blocks, the locations of all of the exits, or where they need to go to shut off the gas or electricity.

For this very reason, Steve Larsen invented Tactical Survey, a technology that allows users to see a spherical, interactive image of what every room in a building looked like before a crisis took place.  This software enables agencies to garner, ahead of time, the information that they will need to know in order to respond to a riot or a disaster. 

"Basically, the tool [was] designed originally for one thing--direct tactical intervention in a crisis, whether it's natural or manmade," said Larsen, President and CEO of Tactical Survey Group (TSG). 

Larsen had developed Tactical Survey and was testing it in 1999 when the Columbine High School shootings took place in Colorado.  The tragedy there inspired him to perfect his technology and get it out in the marketplace.

"Many of the first responders that went to Columbine had never been there before.  They didn't know what the building was like [and] they didn't have access to any maps," Larsen said.  "When they did get intelligence that the shooter was in the cafeteria, they didn't know where the cafeteria was or how to get to it."

The first responders' lack of knowledge about their surroundings at Columbine signaled to Larsen that Tactical Survey could become an important tool for schools.

 "I thought, why don't I tailor this to be a program that would stop things [like] Columbine from ever happening again," Larsen said.  "[Tactical Survey] would allow people who had to intervene in a situation to operate so much more efficiently [and] so much more quickly."

But after teaming up with the Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization (OLETC) in 2001, Larsen began to consider the potential of his technology beyond its use in schools.  National security became one of his new focuses for Tactical Survey, especially in the wake of 9-11, but he began to concentrate on other areas, too.

Using Tactical Survey in Corrections

"Since I actually invented the technology, we've found a lot of other uses for it," Larsen said.  "One of the giant uses we found was in the corrections field."

According to Larsen, corrections agencies could benefit from his imagery software when facilities erupt into chaos because it improves officers' response time to incidents.  In fact, tests conducted throughout the country have shown that parties are able to respond to crises five times faster when they have Tactical Survey on site, he added.
 
"Prison riots are very unorganized events," Larsen said.  "It takes time for what I would call a hostile force to take hostages and then to find a place where they can barricade themselves, especially in such a way that they can avoid a tactical response.  If your responders can interact with a situation before the hostiles can become barricaded, they can effectively stop the event from occurring," he said.  "That's the whole principle behind deploying tactical surveys at corrections facilities."

For example, if a riot were to occur at a prison where the command tower is equipped with Tactical Survey, the officers there would see three-dimensional, beach-ball-shaped images of what different parts of the facility looked like before the incident, Larsen said.  Information, such as which ways doors swing and how to shut off the electricity, accompanies these pictures so the officers in the tower can relay instructions to those responding to the riot, he added.

"Each image has operations-specific intelligence embedded on the interior of the spheres themselves," Larsen said. 

An Information Source for All First Responders

In addition to corrections personnel, other first responders, like firefighters and EMTs, can utilize Tactical Survey to obtain information about emergency situations that is pertinent to their tasks.  All of the information on the images is color-coded so that it is easy to distinguish between the embedded messages that are meant for different agencies.

"Each [agency] can get just the information they need and go to work," said Larsen.

In order to determine what information each agency needs to have included in Tactical Survey, Larsen and his TSG "operations teams" identify all of the different agencies that would respond to an event.  Then, they pick their brains.

"What is important is you get the local responders together and you have to get inside of their heads.  You have to understand their standard operating procedures and the methods they use in their particular agency to deal with problems," Larsen said.  "We identify everyone who has a dog in the fight and we visit with them and we find out what information they need based on the way they work."

Once Larsen and his teams know what information they are looking for, they comb through a facility, wearing a small, personal computer, onto which they input data about the facility, such as where the electric and air handling systems are located and how to disable them.  They record "everything you could possibly want to know," Larsen said.

That information is then built into Tactical Survey, said Larsen.

"No two tactical surveys are ever the same simply because no two response forces do things the same," he said.  "Each [system] is customized for the people who are going to use it."

Along with gathering data, Larsen's teams also field-verify the mapping inside of a facility to make sure that it is accurate and up-to-date.

According to Larsen, once the information has been collected and the maps have been verified, the Tactical Survey software is delivered to the customer who can run it on Microsoft's Windows 98 or any later version of Windows.  In total, Tactical Survey costs about one dollar per square foot of a facility, a price that has been reduced from five dollars in past years.

"We're making gains to even reduce it further," said Larsen,

Corrections Agencies Crippled by Budgets

But, even with Larsen's effort to lower the price of the technology, Tactical Survey is still too expensive for corrections agencies, which, according to Larsen are hampered by budget constraints and have thus far been unable to purchase the technology.  He hopes to change that in the future, though.

"When corrections facilities do get funding, they're so understaffed and under-equipped that it is a struggle [just] to get more guns [and] more bullets," Larsen said.  "Until they have the equipment and manpower to get their jobs done, they can't get Tactical Survey."

While Larsen is working hard to find funding for corrections agencies to purchase the technology, he has had little luck thus far at both the federal and local levels.  But he's still looking. 

"The job that [corrections officers] have to do is very, very difficult," Larsen said.  "I'm working very hard to try and find funding.  It's just difficult--if not impossible--to come by for our correctional facilities," he said.  "It's just a real shame."

Resources:

For more information about Tactical Survey or TSG, contact Steve Larsen at steven@tacticalsurveygroup.com or go to www.tacticalsurveygroup.com