Prison Management: Not a Cakewalk

Prisons-together with the police, judiciary and security
apparatus-are an integral part of any state as they play an important role
with respect to prisoners' right. The Prison Management Systems (PMS)
developed and implemented by the National Informatics Centre is an application,
to give the Tihar Jail authorities the right tools to enhance efficiency of the
administrative mechanism.

Nonetheless, implementing PMS in Tihar Jail, India's
largest jail and Asia's second largest jail, unquestionably could not have
been a cakewalk. The Tihar Jail houses over 14,000 inmates presently.

The application has allowed jail authorities to keep details
pertaining to inmates, which includes category of the prisoner, criminal record,
year of entry, biometric details right at the time of their entry, prisoner
number, photograph, personal details (age, address, information related to
family members, etc), medical details, lodging etc.

The biometric details consist of prisoner's photograph and
fingerprint, which are used for verification of the prisoners in case of
duplicate entry.

"The PMS allowed us to adopt a systematic and uniform
approach to handling information about prisoners in Tihar," said Sunil
Kumar Gupta, law officer, Central Jail, Tihar.

The software also supports a record of movement of inmates
inside and outside the jail, including court cases details about action taken
during hearings.

"The application is good in dealing with over-populous
prisons, such as Tihar, which house more inmates than their sanctioned
capacity," said Rajiv Saxena, deputy director general, NIC. The sanctioned
capacity of Tihar is 5,648 prisoners.

PMS is a G2G and G2C e-Governance tool. "Apart from
creating transparency and simplifying information handling, the application has
helped in creating a central database to provide information about all jails in
the Tihar Prisons complex," said Saxena. Tihar is a huge complex spread
over 400 acres, with over 10 jails.

A prison official said, "With the implementation of PMS,
things have become much easier to manage. The central database gives us the tool
to manage the administrative detailing smoothly."

Prior to the introduction of PMS in 2004, Tihar used the
Prisons Inmates Information System adopted in 1994. All jails had been
computerized then. There are eight NIC computer centers in the complex, one in
each of the seven jails and one in the Prison HQ.

All these Computer Centers are connected to each other
through Fiber Optic LAN. Each center is equipped with a Pentium Pro Server and
different nodes are given to different sections. There is a computer center at
the Tihar Jail reception for public inquiry.

Recalling the problems that NIC faced while executing the
project, Saxena said, "We did face problems in laying the optical fibers,
but we somehow had to manage with what we had in hand."

"Tihar's thick concrete walls were very difficult to
drill. The problem was aggravated as there were no route maps," he said.
"Besides, due to fear of security issues, laborers were not allowed inside
the jails, so we took the help of prison inmates."

Upgradation of the prison inmates information system was
carried out to incorporate fingerprints and photographs of prisoners to enhance
security. This was aimed at fully computerizing systems of visitor's
management, hospital management, personnel management, inventory management,
etc.

PMS works with the on-line working-pattern of the prisons
(registration, movement and release). "The application has been crucial in
providing information to prison officials, about inmates under their
custody," said Rajeev Saxena. The prisoner database consists of details of
16,000 prisoners, 40,000 fingerprints, and 60,000 photographs.

Conceiving PMS

The seeds of the project were sown when the technical consultant to Tihar,
NIC, conducted a full systems study of the various processes, nodes and flow of
information within the jail. NIC had been supporting all computer operations of
the Tihar Prisons Complex.

The end result was the design and development of the Prison
Management Solution for Tihar, harnessing the full power of Information
Technology along with a detailed network diagram for implementation of the LAN
in the prison complex.

Ensuring Scalability

The application can be adopted in local jails as per their requirements.
Saxena said the application is supported by open database connectivity, which
ensures access to any data from any application, regardless of which database
management system (DBMS) is handling the data. Database connectivity makes it
possible to connect it to the database as per requirements. All master codes,
pertaining to 15 master tables, can be modified as per requirement.

"PMS can easily be customized according to the local
requirements of the jails. It has been installed in 16 central jails located at
various places of India, after making required changes at database level,"
he said.

Managing Visitors

Besides this, the Visitors Management System (VMS) is another application
that was introduced in 2005.

The visitor database consists of details of 50,000 visitors
along with their photographs. On an average, 3,000 visitors come to Tihar daily.
"VMS has reduced the count of criminals visiting the jail," said a
senior official. "Besides, it has benefited visitors who earlier had to
wait for hours to get clearance."

The prison has further made way for using advance technology
like use of video conferencing from jails to prisons, CCTV, DFMDs and HHMDs.
According to Saxena, the prime intention is to integrate all the Central Jails
of India with the police departments for sharing information about prisoners at
the national level, so that police officials can retrieve information of
prisoners and their visitors.

Urvashi Kaul

urvashik@cybermedia.co.in