Inmates’ records at the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) are now digitized through the support of the European Union (EU).
Top officials from EU and BuCor on Monday, Nov. 18, announced the completion of the digitization of records of more than 50,000 inmates currently serving sentences inside BuCor's correctional facilities.
Inmates' individual paper dossiers, also known as carpetas, have been digitized through the support of EU's Governance in Justice (EU-GOJUST) program.
The project provided equipment and technicians to scan all paper records of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) and complete them with the latter's biometric data.
A carpeta includes all of PDLs' basic information—from biometric description to sentencing.
For a long period of time, paper records' had to be scanned and faxed every time they were needed by BuCor's correctional facilities outside Metro Manila.
But the newly-digitized records will allow all of BuCor's facilities to access their inmates' files, facilitating their monitoring of PDLs cases, including the timely identification of those eligible for release, according to EU team in Manila.
"The main objective of the EU’s GOJUST programme is to promote access to justice to all, in the Philippines, including Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDLs). And I am therefore very proud that the EU’s support to digitisation of carpetas, and our support to the building of the National Justice Information System, will help agencies in their efforts to decongest prisons," EU Ambassador to Manila Massimo Santoro said.
There were also laptops, high-speed scanners, webcams, and biometric equipment that were provided by the EU. They should allow BuCOR to digitise the carpetas of any future inmates.
Efforts are also underway to connect the BuCOR’s digital database with the other correction agencies like Board of Pardons and Parole (BPP), the Parole and Pardon Administration (PPA), and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).
Once completed and connected to the National Justice Information System (NJIS), these other agencies will also have access to the digitised carpetas, EU said.