NCJ Number
142892
Journal
Security Management Dated: (March 1992) Pages: 37-38
Date Published
1992
Length
2 pages
Annotation
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which mandated businesses to make reasonable accommodations for people with various disabilities to access their facilities, will affect architecture, life-safety design, and building security technology.
Abstract
The areas that will be most severely affected include building access, door hardware, fire egress, and systems control. The law, while providing access to buildings for the disabled, may unintentionally accommodate criminals taking advantage of long door delays and one-step releases to gain entry into a building undetected. Wide, metal security doors common in medical and institutional facilities, must be easy for disabled persons to open and close; elevator buttons and counters must be lower to the floor; alarms systems for evacuation must provided for the blind, deaf, nonambulatory, and staff of the building; and visual alarms must be tied into the emergency power circuit. As a result of these requirements, security will be compromised in numerous ways, some not yet even imagined; building planners and security professionals are now challenged more than ever to keep a building's contents, users, and information safe and under control.