DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PRISONER COUNSELLING AUTOMATED SYSTEM
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Introduction
There is no doubt that delivering counselling in prisons can be extremely challenging for the counsellor, both ethically and personally. Burnout happens very quickly. Counsellors need to be resilient, both physically and emotionally, and have adequate means of support. On a daily basis, the counsellor working in the prison environment must wrestle with a range of diverse and complex issues, including security, confidentiality and, perhaps most significantly of all, how to develop the therapeutic relationship to promote psychological growth in an environment that mitigates against such processes. Prison counsellors are criminal justice and mental health professionals who play important roles in the correctional system. They help rehabilitate inmates during their stay in prison and prepare them to reintegrate into the real world once they are released. Prison counsellors usually have at least a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice or a mental health-related field like social work or psychology [1].
The aim of a prison counsellor is to provide guidance to inmates when they first enter prison and throughout the duration of their sentence. The first way they accomplish this is by performing assessments on new inmates. Assessments are used to help determine an appropriate course of treatment, such as whether prisoners require substance abuse counselling, and to establish behavioural goals. Counsellors gather bio-psychosocial information, meaning pertinent biological, psychological and social details, for use in compiling a comprehensive case history. In some cases, counsellors may interview a prisoner’s family members or significant others to obtain additional information. The case history is provided to psychiatrists and other medical staff for use in their evaluation of the inmate [2].
Prison counsellors also provide education, individual and group counselling to inmates. They teach new prisoners about the rules of the facility and help them adjust to life behind bars. Prison counsellors offer vocational, academic, social and personal counselling to help prisoners develop new skills and cultivate insight to prevent recidivism. Counsellors might provide individual counselling on issues such as depression, stress or substance abuse. They also often lead counselling and educational groups in areas like problem solving, anger issues and stress management. They may occasionally intervene in crises [3].Education software
Another important task of a prison counsellor is to evaluate a prisoner’s treatment progress. Prison counsellors determine whether an inmate has met specific treatment goals, such as demonstrating improvements in behaviour or completing educational programs. They help prepare reports and other documents regarding the prisoner’s progress, cooperation and attitude for submission to the parole board. They might also be involved in recommending disciplinary action for prisoners with poor behaviour or suggesting increases in privileges for prisoners who engage in positive and acceptable behaviours [4].
The duties of a prison counsellor aren’t just limited to clinical interactions with prisoners. Like most mental health professionals, prison counsellors must usually also complete a variety of administrative tasks. They write accurate and detailed case notes after every contact with a prisoner, compile prisoner case files and fill out treatment plans. They may perform other tasks as needed, such as filling out the prisoner’s phone or visitation list and providing prisoners with grievance forms upon request [4].
Given this immense responsibility of counsellors, there is a need for them to be aided by using software systems that will enable them to carry out their prison counselling responsibilities effectively.
1.1 Statement of the Problem
The following are the problems that necessitated this research to be conducted: Absence of an effective computerized system for prison counselors to manage prisoners counseling records, it is difficult to retrieve counseling progress report record of prisoners, manual management of evaluation record of prisoners as regards response to counseling, It is time consuming to update the counseling record of prisoners due to the manual system of flat file organization, difficulty in accessing counseling information materials.
1.2 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to develop a prisoner counselling automated system. The following are the specific objectives of the research:
To provide computer software that will ease the work of prison counsellors. To have software that will aid in evaluating the progress of prisoners as regards counselling. To provide a system that can be used to obtain reports of the prisoners undergoing counselling from the database of registered records. To make counselling information readily available to the prison counsellors.
1.3 Significance of the Project
This project work is significant in the following ways to the prison counsellor:
It will provide a system that will aid in managing the counselling records of prisoners. It will make available a system that will aid in managing the evaluation records of prison counselling. It will facilitate easy updating of counselling records. The research work will serve as a useful reference material to other researchers seeking similar information.
1.4 Scope of the Study of Education Software
This study covers the design and implementation of a prisoner counselling automated system, a case study of the Nigeria Prison Ikot Ekpene. It is limited to providing access to electronic materials on different subjects of prison counselling, such as drug abuse, alcohol addiction and HIV counselling.
1.6 Organization of Research
This research work is organized into five chapters.
Chapter one is concerned with the introduction of the research study and it presents the, statement of the problem, aim and objectives of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, organization of the research and definition of terms.
Chapter two focuses on the literature review, theoretical background, and the contributions of other scholars on the subject matter is discussed.
Chapter three is concerned with the system analysis and design. It presents the description of the existing system, analysis of the proposed system and design of the proposed system is also presented in this chapter.
Chapter four presents the choice of development environment, implementation architecture, software testing, documentation, user manual and source code listing.
Chapter five focuses on the summary, conclusion and recommendations are provided in this chapter based on the study carried out.
1.7 Definition of Terms
Prison: A place of long-term confinement for those convicted of serious crimes.
Prisoner: A person incarcerated in a prison, while on trial or serving a sentence.
Counselor: A professional who counsels people, especially on personal problems.
Evaluation: An assessment of performance, normally conducted regularly.
Counselling record: Counselling information of each prisoner is saved to the database for future retrieval/reference.
Database: A collection of organized information in a regular structure accessible by a computer.
Database management system: A software program for storing, retrieving and manipulating a database.
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