On college and university campuses across the country, the role of the campus police officer is changing. More and more, school leaders are authorizing the arming of sworn officers to allow them to provide a higher level of protection in the areas they patrol and to allow for a more effective response in high-risk situations.

Along with these changes comes the need to secure the small arms and ammunition that will be used by the campus police officers. And while weapons racks and cabinets, secured by a lock and key, might have been the conventional solution for this purpose, newer and more advanced technology solutions such as asset management systems are available that go beyond safely securing these items and also track usage.

Today’s automated asset management systems are intelligent devices that can help improve operational readiness. Weapons secured in the large tamper-proof lockers can be quickly and easily accessed by authorized personnel, and all access activity is automatically recorded for later investigations or for immediate audit. The system is programmable to help ensure that stored weapons cannot be accessed by individuals outside of their regularly scheduled hours; access privileges can be quickly updated in the event of personnel changes. Emails and text messages can be sent automatically to supervisory personnel if a weapon is not returned to the locker as scheduled.

Some asset management systems can also be configured with key modules in addition to the lockers, making them even more useful in a campus safety department. Keys for patrol and emergency vehicles can be stored in the key cabinets with the same control and tracking features as the lockers. For added convenience, when the cabinets are networked, the keys can be returned to any key cabinet on campus and the system will always know which cabinet they are in, who has them or who has had them out.

Asset management and key control systems can provide added peace of mind when schools make the difficult decision to arm their sworn officers.