AWARD YEAR
2021
CATEGORY
Body
GOALS
Good Health & Well-being
KEYWORDS
Incarceration
COUNTRY
United States of America
DESIGNED BY
Zo Orchingwa and Gabe Saruhashi
WEBSITE
https://ameelio.org/#/
Ameelio
The US nation’s first free prison communications platform
Ameelio is here to decouple incarceration and profit, and combat mass incarceration. Nearly one in two Americans has a family member who has experienced incarceration. When a loved one is imprisoned, staying in touch is vital. Yet prison communications options remain prohibitively expensive. Ameelio's free communications alternatives (letters, photos, postcards and more) will decouple prisons from profit and instead build community. The vision is to disrupt the prison telecommunications industry, outcompeting incumbents by providing services that prioritize users over profits. The $1.2 billion prison telecommunications industry is one of the most under-reported bad actors in the criminal justice space. They exploit vulnerable families’ desire to remain connected while separated by incarceration. These providers are profiting primarily from low-income families: one in three families with incarcerated loved ones are forced into debt due to the costs of maintaining contact.