MONUSCO facilitates the digitization of data at the central prison of Beni

The officers of the Beni prison are delighted to be able to work with more modern tools. Photos MONUSCO / Joël Bofengo

18 Jun 2022

MONUSCO facilitates the digitization of data at the central prison of Beni

Joël Bofengo

All records of inmates in Beni's central prison will soon be digitized. To enable the prison staff to properly use these new tools, MONUSCO's Corrections Unit has been holding a three-day training session for them since June 16, 2022. Eric Kikwaya and Kiza Kavira are among the trained staff. The former is a clerk at Beni central prison. He is delighted with the digitization of the prison's records. This makes his work easier.

Before, everything had to be written down: the registers of the inmates, the arrests, etc. Everything was done by hand. Consequently, retrieving the case file of an inmate who had arrived at the prison several years earlier was a "painstaking task", which could take several hours.

"This digitization is good news for the prison because it will allow us to have synthetic data. When someone comes here and wants to know the situation of the case of a particular inmate, I will just go on the computer, click on it and the inmate's situation appears immediately on the screen. So it makes the daily management of our administrative tasks here at the prison a little easier," explains Eric Kikwaya, who works as a clerk at Beni central prison. He has seen the difficulties of working in the absence of digital records. His work as a researcher at the official University of Semuliki has made him sensitive to the issue of archive security. Digital documents are undoubtedly easier to keep than paper records.

“Before, we only had pen and paper”

His colleague Kiza Kavira has also known the reign of the pen and paper. She arrived at Beni prison as a supervisor in 2010 and is currently the deputy director, after a few years at the Registry. "When I arrived here, I was young," the 30 year-old woman says in an amused tone. "We only worked on paper. Writing with a pen all the time, it's not always easy. Today, they bring us computers. It will make all the work easier. Our data will be more secure than when using paper because paper is loose. The computer keeps data better," she argues.

Eric Kikwaya and Kiza Kavira are delighted to be able to work with more modern tools, which facilitate the management of a prison with a thousand inmates. Since last February, their colleagues at the central prison in Butembo have already been experimenting with this digital data management, once again thanks to the support of MONUSCO.