Prisons turn to data analytics for prisoner rehab in Singapore
Supporting officers in day-to-day operations, the system also allows them to generate statistics and reports to give insights into, and analysis of, trends
By Kenneth Ng
Prison officers in Singapore will increasingly be less occupied with watching over their charges and focus instead on “higher-order” work, geared towards rehabilitating prisoners, as the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) taps technology to automate processes.
This includes tapping data analytics to grasp the rehabilitative needs and progress of inmates, to minimise their risk of re-offending.
The Digital Rehabilitation Records Management System — one of the initiatives unveiled yesterday at the yearly workplan seminar of the SPS and the Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises — tracks the attendance records of inmates at work, counselling and rehabilitation programmes.
The system does this by lodging a near-field-communication technology chip in prisoners’ wrist-tags. The system is being tested in Institution B3 at the Changi Prison Complex, and the goal is to expand it to other prisons next year.
Right now, officers take attendance manually and tracking such data is “very cumbersome” and labour-intensive, said Senior Assistant Commissioner (SAC) Koh Tong Hai, SPS director of transformation and technology.