CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

There is no doubt that delivering counseling in prisons can be extremely challenging for the counselor, both ethically and personally. Burnout happens very quickly. Counselors need to be resilient, both physically and emotionally, and have adequate means of support. On a daily basis, the counselor working in the prison environment must wrestle with a range of diverse and complex issues, including security, confidentiality and, perhaps most significant of all, how to develop the therapeutic relationship to promote psychological growth in an environment that mitigates against such processes. Prison counselors 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 counselors 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 counselor 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 counseling, and to establish behavioral goals. Counselors gather bio-psychosocial information, meaning pertinent biological, psychological and social details, for use in compiling a comprehensive case history. In some cases, counselors may interview a prisoner's family members or significant other to obtain additional information. The case history is provided to psychiatrists and other medical staff for use in their evaluation of the inmate [2].

1.4 Scope of the Study

This study covers design and implementation of a prisoner counseling automated system, a case study of Nigeria Prison Ikot Ekpene. It is limited to providing access to electronic materials on different subjects of prison counseling such as drug abuse, alcohol addiction and HIV counseling.

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, 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.

Counseling record: Counseling information of each prisoner that 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.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PRISONER COUNSELLING AUTOMATED SYSTEM

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