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Published on April 25, 2008

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation

Rayong

Rayong provincial police have found the perfect solution in solving the issue of transferring suspects to courts, a requirement for renewing the period of their detention.

Technology has come to the aid of the police, helping them meet this requirement via a computer screen.

Instead of physically taking the suspects from the prison to the court, the suspect, the judge and police can meet virtually to request the court order.

To help make the process easy and secure, the Rayong provincial police have collaborated with the Rayong Provincial Court and Rayong Provincial Prison to develop a new detention-renewal system that uses videoconferencing.

"Normally, to renew detention the suspect and the investigating officer are required to appear before a judge to obtain approval. This process takes at least half a day. However, with the new system we can now shorten the time spent to five minutes," said Colonel Chartchai Tangiean, deputy commander of the Rayong provincial police.

At 10.30am each weekday, the court opens for detention renewal through the videoconferencing system, while the suspects whose detention need to be renewed sit at the prison in front of a computer system equipped with a digital video camera.

When the judge calls out the suspect's name, the individual comes in front of the camera to identify him- or herself. The investigating officer joins in from the police station.

A computer equipped with a digital camera and wide-screen monitor has been installed in the court, the prison and the 16 police stations in Rayong province, in order to allow each party to participate in the process in real time. The system enables them to ask and answer questions, conduct online chats, share files and obtain detention-renewal approval even though they are 30-70 kilometres apart.

The province started using the new system in January, and it has helped improve the efficiency of all involved. Since everything is done online, it has helped the police cut down on security concerns that arise during transfers and reduce operational costs, said Colonel Jirawut Tantasri, head of the Rayong provincial police's Information Technology Centre.

The Rayong provincial police spent only Bt300,000 to develop the videoconferencing software. They did not add any infrastructure and used a 2-megabit ADSL connection and computer equipment that they already owned to run the system. Hosting a server to run the videoconferencing system costs only Bt4,000 a month.

To make the detention-renewal process more secure, the police are planning to use biometrics technology to identify suspects online, Jirawut said.

By using fingerprinting technology, the suspects can be identified in front of the judge remotely.

"We're building the fingerprint database and studying the development of fingerprint technology. We hope the finger-scan technology will be integrated with the online detention-renewal system in the near future," Jirawut said.

The system is also used for internal conferences.

The police plan to expand the system to the Rayong Family and Juvenile Court.