ABSTRACT
Prisoners’ management in Nigeria has long been a neglected area and has only recently been included in the 2018 vision document under the e-governance. Currently, prisoner’s records are maintained in a very rudimentary way in the form of manual files and registers.The findings indicated that the number of inmates is escalating and the current manual system cannot handle the records well and the required operations in real time and efficiently is required. This method of data management often results in human error, delay to retrieve information etc. Thus, a Web based Prison Information System was designed and implemented to manage prisoner’s records for the Nigerian prison service Enugu in other to solve the problem of data security, accessibility, timely report production and avoid redundancy. The objective of this project is to ensure the availability of data in digital form for preservation, analysis and reporting. To ensure that there is no impersonation of the prisoners. In order to achieve the above objectives, a method has to be used which is SSADM (structured system analysis and design method) which is systems approach to the analysis and design of information systems. This methodology has a relationship to waterfall model because it has stages that helped me create my web site. This project was done using Html (hypertext markup language), Css (cascading style sheet), JavaScript, php for server scripting and MySQL database was used to store and manage the prisoner’s records. They are the technologies used in designing the website. The technologies mentioned enabled me achieve a result of creating web based prison information management system.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Management of prisons in Nigeria has long been a neglected area which has recently been incorporated in the e-governance program of Government of Nigeria. Currently a rudimentary process of storing all the prisoner data in manual files and registers is in place. The Prison Information System project will integrate all the prisoner data into a single integrated system which will in turn result all the information being present in a digital format. ICT in prisons was initiated in the year 2002 at Delhi Prisons, Tihar[1]. The Tihar Prisons Complex in New Delhi is the biggest prison complex in Asia comprising of 9 prisons and one District Jail at Rohini with a total strength of more than 11,000 prisoners against a normal sanctioned capacity of 6250 prisoners. In a year about 70,000 – 80,000 inmates remain lodged in these prisons for different duration and crimes committed by them. This prison population has about 80% under trials and includes about 480 women inmates. About 400 inmates are foreigners from different parts of the world. Many high security criminals also live here. There has been a substantial increase in number of prison inmates coming to Tihar because of a phenomenal increase in the crime scene at Delhi that has resulted in the increase of the ICT needs and its management at the Tihar Jail Complex.
Nearly 1700-1800 visitors meet their relative inmates’ everyday. There was manual system of booking (meetings) in each jail for its respective inmates. Centralised visitor record was not available. There was lack of exchange of visitors’ information within jails and prison headquarters. No provision for identification / detection / verification of visitors was there.
Managing the prisoner record and monitoring of prisoner / visitor was always difficult since most of the records were normally maintained manually, so the concerned authorities were required to go through all the registers to find out the details and status of the inmate as well as of the visitor.
In order to cope up with the increasing number of prisoners being lodged in, the Tihar Administration required a re-engineering and rationalization of their key business processes and functions of prisoners’ related information and their computerization in order to speed up the processing of information need of courts and various other national agencies[2].
As the technology evolution is taking place, there arose a need for centralization of prisoner’s data to facilitate information exchange and data sharing to the users of the prison. It shall reduce administrative overheads, speed up responsiveness to users, reduce risks involved in inmate’s custody, eliminated obsolete processes and reap cost-cutting benefits.
