DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE PRISON MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIA PRISON SERVICE MAKURDI, BENUE)

ABSTRACT

Prisoners management in Nigeria has long been a neglected area and has only recently been included in the 2020 vision document under the egovernance. Currently, prisoners records are maintained in a very rudimentary way in the form of manual files and registers. This method of data management often results in human error, delay to retrieve information etc. Thus, An Online Prison Management System was designed and implemented to manage prisoners records for the Nigerian prison service Enugu command. This project was done using basic html for visible web contents, php for server scripting and MySQL database was used to store and manage the prisoners records. Tools used to achieve this Project includes Dreamweaver CS5 html editor,CSS3 for styling, JavaScript, php wamp5 server and MySQL. The project was implemented successfully and the result obtained provides a single management system which integrates all the information about a prisoner in a single profile and can easily be accessed which improved the overall efficiency of prison management

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Management of prisons in Nigeria has long been a neglected area which has recently been incorporated in the egovernance 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 Management 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. 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.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Management of prisons in Nigeria is still at a nascent stage and follows rudimentary processes. Most of the prisons in Nigeria have a collection of manual files and registers to store prisoner/criminal records. This is a very inefficient and cumbersome way of storing records which greatly impedes the flow of critical information as well as makes looking up of information time consuming

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

The main purpose behind the implementation of the Prison Management System PMS was to enhance the administrative capabilities of the jails in terms of monitoring and security of the prison while improving the efficiency and productivity of the Prisons. The main goals of the project are enunciated below:

To ensure proper monitoring of the prisons by the top officials

To ensure that the discipline and decorum of the jails is maintained by both the employees and the prisoners

To ensure that no impersonation of the prisoners happens by proper validation and authentication of the prisoners identity

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT

The nature of project is such that outcome of project could be quantitatively measured only for few parameters such as

Automatic detection of duplication

Immediate generation of report on categorization of prisoners on basis of their cases, period of confinement etc.

Automatic calculation of Remission to be granted to a convict prisoner for good behavior, discipline etc.