This looks fantastic. One bit of feedback: the lack of a Paypal option for donating almost stopped me from donating. The fees might be worth the security guarantee.
Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
61–70 of 98 posts
Re: Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many states ban any kind of social media access by inmates, even through a third party https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2017/may/5/texas-prison... Obviously there's some nuance as to whether Soundcloud is social media, but the bigger point is that prisons want to control inmates' ability to communicate
>the bigger point is that prisons want to control inmates' ability to communicate For good reason. Uncontrolled inmate communications result in things like murder: "The complaint alleges that Corbett planned several killings with Ronald Dean Yandell, aka Renegade, an Aryan Brotherhood leader who prosecutors say sits on the three-man commission that runs the gang. Corbett and Yandell were incarcerated 220 miles apart…
We don't need to restrict inmates free speech as conspiring to murder someone is already illegal.
Re: Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
#63This looks fantastic. One bit of feedback: the lack of a Paypal option for donating almost stopped me from donating. The fees might be worth the security guarantee.
We'll get that fixed ASAP.
Re: Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
#64Lead developer here. Ameelio is a non-profit that's building free technology to transform corrections and criminal justice. We've recently launched Letters, our first application that lets loved-ones of incarcerated individuals send physical mail for free. Currently, the situation is that two corporations own communication throughout the prisons and jails in the U.S (Global Tel Link and Securus). They charge ridiculo…
Speaking from personal experience in my family, this hits close to home as well. The for profit system is an absolute travesty and horrible circumstance. Thank you for spending your time working on something to fight back against this gross system.
Re: Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
First I'd like to thank you for the comment. You made me realize a mistake I made in mentioning JPay and Securus when I meant to say Global Tel Link and Securus. As far as pushback from other companies, we haven't received any so far. There's nothing they can really do besides make their services more appealing. Currently, with Letters (our first app), it allows users to sign up, add their contacts (inmates), and the…
Honest question, because I have no idea how this all works: if people can just send letters for the cost of a stamp then why do they use Global Tel Link or Securus? Really great thing you're doing here, I hope it all works out.
Not OP, but I spent 11 months technically in US Federal custody, but in practice I was incarcerated in various county jails [0] that they contract with. I have experience with PayTel and Securus. At the facilities I housed in the digital > printed letter systems were not offered [1], everything was through USPS or your standard parcel carriers for packages. Books from outside were allowed. Global Tel Link, Securus, and PayTel have a very literal captive customer base when it comes to phone communications. While almost everyone wrote letters, a phone call is a much different form of communication. You can actually have a live conversation with a loved one! You can hear their voice, and respond in real time. For this reason, we paid the price demanded by the companies. In my state of North Carolina, the maximum price of a local call through PayTel was $.40/minute. The long-distance rates were cheaper, and so people would get Google voice numbers to get the cheaper rate.
[0] Wake County Detention Center, Edgecombe County Jail, and Albemarle District Jail.
[1] I could absolutely see these systems being utilized. They could take the roundtrip latency of text-based communication down to a day if the facility had a kiosk from which we could send replies. I was told by people on the yard that this is how CorrLinks works.
Re: Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
#66There is already a similar service but it costs (very little) money called jmail.cc that I've been using that prints out letters and photos and mail them for you. As an ex US federal prisoner (long story, teenager, petty financial hacking crime, extradited from a foreign country years ago) I am intimately aware of the terribad state of Jpay and corrlinks and all the other overpriced communciations methods for prisone…
I've seriously enjoyed reading your comments. Would love to get in touch sometime and discuss some ideas. I think the book idea you do is awesome. My email is in my profile. Please reach out if you see this!
[deleted]
Re: Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
>the bigger point is that prisons want to control inmates' ability to communicate For good reason. Uncontrolled inmate communications result in things like murder: "The complaint alleges that Corbett planned several killings with Ronald Dean Yandell, aka Renegade, an Aryan Brotherhood leader who prosecutors say sits on the three-man commission that runs the gang. Corbett and Yandell were incarcerated 220 miles apart…
We don't need to restrict inmates free speech as conspiring to murder someone is already illegal.
You probably want to at least monitor their communications though; there is essentially no right to privacy for prisoners unless they are communicating with counsel. That means restricting the types of communication they can use (if only for practical reasons).
I think most people would agree we all want to avoid scenarios like this:
"Inside rolls of razor-wire fence, behind a network of heavy metal doors, locked alone in a North Carolina prison cell for 23 hours every day, a high-ranking gang leader directed accomplices in Georgia to carry out a contract killing. Step by step over a smuggled cellphone, the prisoner instructed gang members in chilling detail: “Gag him real tight. Put something in his mouth. Put something over his head.” The plot, to kill a prosecutor’s father, was foiled in April 2014. The inmate – a founder of the United Blood Nation – was sentenced in November to life plus 84 months on kidnapping and related charges." https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article15...
Re: Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
First I'd like to thank you for the comment. You made me realize a mistake I made in mentioning JPay and Securus when I meant to say Global Tel Link and Securus. As far as pushback from other companies, we haven't received any so far. There's nothing they can really do besides make their services more appealing. Currently, with Letters (our first app), it allows users to sign up, add their contacts (inmates), and the…
"One type of pushback we can receive is from facilities themselves. One facility returned one of our letters and said that you can't have anything in the letter that could be some form of encrypted message or symbol. In our case, that happened to be the bar code used by the third party service to manage their letters." Here is example of bad scenario which I sincerely hope will never happen. Anything containing image…
You can do the same thing with text as well, or any message that contains any entropy whatsoever.
There isn't one type of message where this is possible and another where it isn't. If you allow two parties to communicate at all, they could really be communicating about anything.
Re: Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
First I'd like to thank you for the comment. You made me realize a mistake I made in mentioning JPay and Securus when I meant to say Global Tel Link and Securus. As far as pushback from other companies, we haven't received any so far. There's nothing they can really do besides make their services more appealing. Currently, with Letters (our first app), it allows users to sign up, add their contacts (inmates), and the…
You have to give wardens/politicians money to put any kind of technology in their prisons, so free video chat/messaging isn't going to happen unless some benevolent billionaire prince is funding you. However you could do some kind of distance education via letters, remember math can be learned with just pen and paper and not the kind of shit we learn in highschool but the Terrence Tao Analysis from scratch kind. Ther…
>You have to give wardens/politicians money to put any kind of technology in their prisons, so free video chat/messaging isn't going to happen unless some benevolent billionaire prince is funding you.
Having done a decent amount of IT work at prisons, this isn't really the case. What I did often see, however, is that various vendors would give a very long free trial and free hardware to the prisons I worked with, with the basic idea being to lock them in when the obscenely high normal rates kick in after the free year or however long the trial was
Re: Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform
#70Hi I'm Kiran, the finance manager for Ameelio. We are 100% committed to keeping our tools free for users - they're some of the most vulnerable in society and it is a tragedy that they are getting fleeced by predatory companies. As our founder said, we're completely self-funded and all volunteers right now. That's to say - we really need $$ to keep sending letters. If you have spare resources during these times, we wo…
> We are 100% committed to keeping our tools free for users
> Website: "All our users can send unlimited free letters"
But then in your landing page screenshot:
> To celebrate Ameelio's launch, you have unlimited letters! As our community grows, you'll have access to 4 free letters a month.
So which one is it? To say it's a "free communication platform" with "unlimited free letters" but then to limit it to 4 letters/mo as your "community grows" is disingenuous.