Breaking Free

This one may not look as dismal as Madhur Bhandarkars jail, for those who
have seen the latest Bollywood flick would know what goes behind the bars. The
difficulties associated with manual compilation, analysis, and retrieval of
prisoner records; errors in calculation of release date of prisoners; etc, could
make prison management a herculean task for any jailer.

This is what led the inspector general of prisons, Goa to propose the
implementation of prisons management system (PRISMS) software in August 2008.
This system was sought to augment the efficiency of jail staff and all related
processes of the prisons. With sixteen functional modules, 100% implementation
of PRISMS has been enabled across four judicial lock-ups, one judicial
lock-up-cum-sub jail, and one central jail in the state. A 24x7 jail booking and
management system, PRISMS provides information on incarcerated adults and
juveniles. Its modular three-tier architecture enables implementation in phases
and each module can be added exclusively. PRISMS is designed with easy to use
menus and a comprehensive security system.

PRISMS reports provide reliable and timely information on all aspects of
prisoner management, including inmate personal property, visitor activity,
mental and medical health information, inmate movements in and out of the
facility, commissary inventory and inmate purchases, medication updates,
remission, parole and furlough, case and crime info, and population statistics.
Some of these reports serve as official document forms with signature lines
provided. It also calculates wages, attendance and remittance towards the common
victim compensation fund, expenditure for legal services, savings and day-to-day
expenses.

This project had been designed, developed and implemented by Goa Electronics
(a subsidiary of EDC, a Government of Goa undertaking) with the active support
from the prison department, IG prisons, and the district magistrate for North
Goa. The software, which was implemented at a cost of Rs 47 lakh, has also
helped Goa implement the common victim compensation fund as recommended by the
Supreme Court. Till date, approximately nine families of victims have been
handed over compensation to the tune of about Rs 2 lakh.

Tech Behind PRISMS

The PRISMS software is hosted on the NIC SAN server at secretariat, Panaji,
Goa. All the jails and judicial lock-ups are connected via 2 MBPS lease line to
the central server. The software functions with the aid of a Windows 2003
Server, a development platform of ASP.NET with C#, a SQL Server 2005 Enterprise
Edition as DBMS and a web-based application with three-tier architecture and
centralized database to provide crystal reports. The clients are mainly Windows
XP Professionals, and the disaster recovery management is done by the NIC state
data center. The additional inspector general of prisons was appointed as the
nodal officer for the project. The superintendent or jailor of each jail was
appointed as project assistant for his respective jail. Apart from this, four
implementation engineers were also appointed to handle day-to-day implementation
issues. The nodal officer holds regular meetings with project assistants and GEL
officials, in case there are any issues in the use of the software or if any
upgradation is required.

The software has a web based application and user-friendly design, and
enables uniform data entry and validation, has increased efficiency, provides
access through user-defined login ID and password, and all transactions related
to prisoners are based on biometric identification. With the implementation of
the centralized online system, authorities at the head office can obtain the
status of prisoners in each prison at any time. As the system is completely
automated, PDR is generated on one click.

In the second phase, it is proposed to enable provision of complete
information about each prisoner to all departments like police, passport, etc.
After all, life existseven in prisons. So why not make it a little better?

Shilpa Shanbhag

shilpas@cybermedia.co.in