At the beginning of spring, the Latvian Prison Administration representatives went to Finland to learn about the practices of partners in information technology issues with an aim to more effectively plan IT solutions for the Latvian Prison Administration information systems, the new Training centre, existing prisons, as well as the new Liepaja Prison.
Colleagues from Finland shared their experience on the information systems they are developing and their knowledge about the mistakes made in development and development planning process, as well as provided recommendations that can help in the planning and management of Latvian Prison Administration’s IIS2.
At the moment, a combined and unified convicts’ information system - ROTI, for the needs of probation and prisons, is operating in Finland, which is used to process and store information related to prisoners and probation clients. ROTI was put into production in May 2022, its development lasted for many years, employees from both Central Office and structural units (prisons and probation) were involved. The system has ensured the alignment of all processes and the necessary data entry.
Useful facts/observations about the ROTI system:
- The system has 6 environments: a production environment, a development environment, 2 test environments (with different data), a pre-production environment (with a copy of real data) and a training environment. This is said to be a good approach because it helps to effectively test and prevent the errors.
- Employees have access to all data in the system, but their individual responsibility is to view only the data necessary for work. There is no special system for monitoring data access. In general, the ROTI system is said to contain only information that the prisoner himself/herself can see by requesting this information.
- Data that are not critical to the system from the old systems were initially used in read mode (in the old system), but are now transferred to the state archive in the system to which ROTI has developed an interface. If you need access to archive, then use the archive system.
- New employees are taught everything about working with ROTI locally in the prison. 10 working days is the recommended time period for training.
- Information is entered into the system and it is possible to track where the prisoner is at any given moment. For example, if a person is an inmate of Helsinki Prison, but is located elsewhere (e.g. has gone to meet his family in another prison), the profile shows where the person is currently located. The fact that the prisoner has gone elsewhere is supported by ROTI documents. In the calendar, it is possible to see where the prisoner is at any moment.
- There is a basic information section for each prison, where general information describing the prison is available, as well as information about each cell, such as whether the cell is in use, how much capacity and other details.
The Finnish colleagues shared other projects they are implementing. It was indicated that artificial intellect solutions are used. However, their explanation suggests that these solutions are previously established algorithms that help in decision-making, that do not learn/improve from the data in the database.
Hämeelinna Prison was also visited where the used IT solutions were demonstrated.
Hämeelinna Prison was opened in 2020 and is designed as a model prison and an example of the smart prison concept (a prison improved with IT solutions).
For example:
- security systems, where movement along the windows and fencing is monitored with cameras and lasers;
- access to the premises is provided by specialized, individualized digital keys.
- laptops with access to the DORIS system are available to prisoners. DORIS is a centralized administration application, from which the laptops connected to the camera are administered.
- when prisoners arrive at the prison, user details (username and password) are generated and issued which they use to log in to the portable computers. The DORIS system allows to submit applications, order books, make video calls, prepare digital documents etc.
The visit was organized by International Affairs unit, Prison and Probation Service of Finland.