Africa-Press – Botswana. Botswana Prison Service (BPS) and Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to help drive their combined efforts.
Commissioner of Prisons, Ms Dinah Marathe said the partnership would help with research to support manufacturing and maintenance of security related devices; up-skilling of inmates and real time monitoring of behaviour using surveillance cameras and artificial intelligence.
She said as the BPS was going through a transformation, the MoU was a step in the right direction to achieve operational excellence as the partnership would also add value to their rehabilitation initiatives, development and offender reintegration, to reduce reoffending rates.
Ms Marathe added that some of the programmes offered by the partnership would equip inmates with marketable skills to give them knowledge to overcome their past and improve their lives.
“As a leader of the prison service I am proud to say this initiative will help us to advance together towards a more inclusive economy, as we reposition and realign the prison service to deliver relevant programmes with high impact,” she said.
BIUST Vice Chancellor, Professor Otlogetswe Totolo said they wanted to build community linkages to enable the university to connect more effectively with the people it served.
Prof. Totolo said the partners would play a huge role in prisoner rehabilitation and re-integration through skills development and transfer initiatives.
He said there were quite a number of researchable areas of primary interest to their operations, including but not limited to, security and operations, works and planning, research and statistics and prisoner rehabilitation and integration.
He revealed that there were multiple key and critical functions of the Botswana prisons that could excite the appetite of BIUST researchers to investigate and find the necessary solutions, where there were challenges.
He said BPS needed a comprehensive prisons information management system, which among others, could be used to ensure the security and safety of both prison staff and inmates.
He said another critical area of focus was on the BPS works and infrastructure development needs, adding that the two institutions would now have the opportunity to look into how the prison facilities could be made more secure and environmentally-friendly.
Prof. Totolo said their focus was also on capacity building and training on various project management tools to help in cost containment and the quality of works.
He said they would also devise ways to make prison facilities fool-proof in terms of electronic surveillance and detection of illegal movements.
For More News And Analysis About Botswana Follow Africa-Press
