Project Abstract

<p> Prisoners’ management in Nigeria has long been a neglected area and has only recently<br>been included in the 20-20 vision document under the e-governance. Currently,<br>prisoner’srecords are maintained in a very rudimentary way in the form of manual files<br>and registers. This method of data management often results in human error, delay to<br>retrieve information etc. Thus, An Online Prison Management System was designed<br>and implemented to manage prisoner’s records for the Nigerian prison service Enugu<br>command. This project was done using basic html for visible web contents, php for<br>server scripting and MySQL database was used to store and manage the prisoner’s<br>records. Tools used to achieve this Project includes Dreamweaver CS5 html editor,CSS3<br>for styling, JavaScript, php wamp5 server and MySQL. The project was implemented<br>successfully and the result obtained provides a single management system which<br>integrates all the information about a prisoner in a single profile and can easily be<br>accessed which improved the overall efficiency of prison management. <br></p>

Project Overview

<p> INTRODUCTION<br>1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY<br>Management of prisons in Nigeria has long been a neglected area which has recently<br>been incorporated in the e-governance program of Government of Nigeria. Currently a<br>rudimentary process of storing all the prisoner data in manual files and registers is in<br>place. The Prison Management System project will integrate all the prisoner data into<br>a single integrated system which will in turn result all the information being present in<br>a digital format.<br>ICT in prisons was initiated in the year 2002 at Delhi Prisons, Tihar. The Tihar Prisons<br>Complex in New Delhi is the biggest prison complex in Asia comprising of 9 prisons and<br>one District Jail at Rohini with a total strength of more than 11,000 prisoners against a<br>normal sanctioned capacity of 6250 prisoners. In a year about 70,000 – 80,000 inmates<br>remain lodged in these prisons for different duration and crimes committed by them.<br>This prison population has about 80% under trials and includes about 480 women<br>inmates. About 400 inmates are foreigners from different parts of the world. Many high<br>security criminals also live here. There has been a substantial increase in number of<br>prison inmates coming to Tihar because of a phenomenal increase in the crime scene<br>at Delhi that has resulted in the increase of the ICT needs and its management at the<br>Tihar Jail Complex.<br>Nearly 1700-1800 visitors meet their relative inmates’ everyday. There was manual<br>system of booking (meetings) in each jail for its respective inmates. Centralised visitor<br>record was not available. There was lack of exchange of visitors’ information within jails<br>and prison headquarters. No provision for identification / detection / verification of<br>visitors was there.<br>Managing the prisoner record and monitoring of prisoner / visitor was always difficult<br>since most of the records were normally maintained manually, so the concerned<br>authorities were required to go through all the registers to find out the details and<br>status of the inmate as well as of the visitor.<br>In order to cope up with the increasing number of prisoners being lodged in, the Tihar<br>Administration required a re-engineering and rationalization of their key business<br>processes and functions of prisoners’ related information and their computerization in<br>order to speed up the processing of information need of courts and various other<br>national agencies.<br>As the technology evolution is taking place, there arose a need for centralization of<br>prisoner’s data to facilitate information exchange and data sharing to the users of the<br>prison. It shall reduce administrative overheads, speed up responsiveness to users,<br>reduce risks involved in inmate’s custody, eliminated obsolete processes and reap costcutting<br>benefits.<br>1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM<br>Management of prison’s in Nigeria is still at a nascent stage and follows rudimentary<br>processes. Most of the prisons in Nigeria have a collection of manual files and registers<br>to store prisoner/criminal records. This is a very inefficient and cumbersome way of<br>storing records which greatly impedes the flow of critical information as well as makes<br>looking up of information time consuming. Also, different files and registers are<br>required to store the information which is relevant to a single prisoner. This hinders the<br>profiling process of prisoners.<br>1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT<br>The main purpose behind the implementation of the Prison Management System (PMS)<br>was to enhance the administrative capabilities of the jails in terms of monitoring and<br>security of the prison while improving the efficiency and productivity of the Prisons.<br>The main goals of the project are enunciated below:<br>ï‚· To ensure proper monitoring of the prisons by the top officials<br>ï‚· To ensure that the discipline and decorum of the jails is maintained by both the<br>employees and the prisoners<br>ï‚· To ensure that no impersonation of the prisoners happens by proper validation<br>and authentication of the prisoner’s identity<br>ï‚· To improve the productivity and efficiency of the prisons so as to facilitate the<br>usage of the available work force for sensitive work while leveraging technology<br>to reduce the mundane workload of the employees<br>ï‚· To ensure the availability of data in digital form for preservation, analysis and<br>reporting.<br>1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT<br>The nature of project is such that outcome of project could be quantitatively measured<br>only for few parameters such as<br>ï‚· Automatic detection of duplication<br>ï‚· Immediate generation of report on categorization of prisoners on basis of their<br>cases, period of confinement etc.<br>ï‚· Automatic calculation of Remission to be granted to a convict prisoner for good<br>behavior, discipline etc.<br>ï‚· Reduction in the cost (Saving of resources) of physical production of prisoners in<br>Courts.<br>1.5 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT<br>The basic purpose of this project is to develop an online system for prison management.<br>The system developed covers prisoner’s information such as picture, conviction,<br>offence, visitors, address, jail term record etc.<br>1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE PROJECT<br>Generally, a study of this nature would have some constraints such as time, money and<br>data collection method. I wish to say that data collection method used has the<br>limitation of rigidity (people finding it difficult to respond to questions) thereby<br>restricting the information obtained.<br>Also lack of finance is another obstacle that hindered a wider consultations and<br>research on the project. Some materials may have some cost implications which may<br>be above the budgeted money for the research work.<br>1.7 PROJECT REPORT ORGANIZATION<br>The project is organized as follows;-<br>Chapter one introduces the background of the project with the statement of the<br>problems, objectives of the project, its significance, scope, and constraints are pointed<br>out. Previous literatures on prison management information system were reviewed in<br>Chapter two. Chapter three discusses system Investigation and Analysis. It deals with<br>detailed investigation and analysis of the existing system and problem identification. It<br>also proposed for the new system. Chapter four covers the system design and<br>implementation. Chapter five was the summary and conclusion of the project.<br>1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS<br>Data- This can be defined as facts about the organization and its business transaction.<br>Information- This can be defined as data that has been transformed and organized by<br>processing and purposeful intelligence.<br>Information system- This is an arrangement of people, data, processes and interface<br>that interact to support and improve day to day operation in a business as well as<br>support the problem solving and decision making needs for management and users.<br>Management: It is the co-ordination of all the resources of an organization through<br>the process of planning, organization, directing and controlling in order to attain<br>organizational objectives. <br></p>