Design and development of a befriending program integrated management and matching system

• Main Author: Cleven, Henrikus Theorizchy
• Other Authors: Tan Chee Wah Wesley
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/76323
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

For over eight years, Singapore Prison Service (SPS) has maintained the Befriending Program, which has continuously become one of the mainstay solutions that aims for a low and stable recidivism rate. It engages involvement from individual or welfare organization volunteers to provide pro-social support for inmates up to 10 months before release (in-care) and six months after release (after-care). Over the years, the Befriending Program has grown and gathered a lot of positive attention. The number of active volunteers octupled within the first five years of the program. Meanwhile, the inmate to institutional staff ratio decreased from 7.5 in 2006 to six in 2016[1]. Considering the current growth rate and the limited number of SPS staff in charge of the program, a simple and traditional database system using Excel sheet is inadequate to maintain the program. Hence, a scalable, reliable, and user-friendly Integrated Matching and Management System (iMatch) is needed. In this project, a web-based application will be designed, developed and implemented based on the Befriending Program needs. Microsoft ASP.NET Core 2.0, Microsoft Entity Framework v2.1, and AngularJS v5.2 technologies were used to deal with application’s Back-End logic, Object Relational Mapper (ORM), and Front-End Framework respectively. The aim of this project was to reduce manual administrative work by collating relevant data from inmates and befrienders, such as gender, race, religion, age, and using the data to automate the pairing process. Within the in-care period, the system should be able to manage visitation schedule, and record interaction summary on each visitation. Insights from statistics generated by the system may help the program manager to evaluate the success of the program. Upon implementation, iMatch is expected to enhance the administrative process and allow SPS staff to focus on other areas that can be improved in inmate’s rehabilitation and reintegration program. Furthermore, an alternative and better matching algorithm was proposed and explained briefly. Substituting the current matching approach may require further studies and research. Nevertheless, this could be a good step to explore.