Luminaires specifically engineered for correctional facility best practices resist everything from substantial abuse to the cleverest attempts at tampering and concealment. Kenall ManufacturingImproving living and working conditions was critical to the design of the correctional facility but doing so while maintaining a safe and secure environment was the ultimate goal. Extra precautions must be taken at every turn, even down to choosing lighting.
“The whole campus is built for extra security,” says Jensen. “All of our corridors are secure. All the sections are secure. Everything we have is designed to be secure.”
The light fixtures selected for inside the cells, for example, must be firmly secured to the ceiling with no chance for crevices or gabs. A virtually impenetrable fixture ensures inmates can’t hide items inside the fixture or take it apart to make a weapon.
“You have to realize these guys have a lot of time on their hands, so the fixture design and the style of fixture that's in a cell, we don't want to give them access to hide things inside the fixture,” says Jensen. “So, we look at that as how secure it is, and then we also look at how much abuse it'll take.”
In maximum security (Max), the materials the lenses in the light are made of is an especially important consideration to prevent the inmates from making weapons.
“In Max, it has to be glass,” says Jensen. “The inmates will create stingers, and they'll melt the lens; they'll cut pieces out of the lens. So, we worked with the manufacturer to make sure that our fixtures in Max had glass, and then our fixtures in medium security had more of a Lexan that would take abuse that's not just a cheaper plastic.”
Durability is another major concern when considering lighting, as these facilities are built to last 50 years. In the end, Kenall, with experience in the correctional industry, was selected for the detention-grade fixtures on the project.
“Knowing a manufacturer who has a quality, has a history of products like these, that's a huge consideration,” says Chris Miller, specification sales, Quantum Lighting Group.
Not only do these fixtures last decades but having the peace of mind that nothing is going to break or fail creates an additional level of security.
“Once these are installed, you don't really have the option to have something failing and just have freewill to go fix it,” says Miller. “It's going to take a little bit more organization and pre planning to go into a cell and swap out a fixture that may or may not be able to come out.”
Miller added that “knowing that the product was going to withhold an integrity in those security levels, that was a big concern for us. Whether that be lenses or fixture thicknesses, that was definitely top priority.”
Amy Wunderlin is a freelance writer based in Fort Atkinson, Wis.
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