Saying Goodbye to Ameelio Mail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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Ameelio launched in 2020, with a mission of supporting successful reentry and strengthening social connections for incarcerated people.

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We began by offering Ameelio Mail, a service that allowed families and friends to send postcards and letters during a time when physical distancing and visitation restrictions made staying connected especially difficult. As our services grew, we consistently heard from Ameelio Mail users just how vital it was to share conversations, photos, and moments from everyday life without going into crippling debt.

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Time and time again, people shared stories with us about the importance of those connections and expressed hope that additional services could expand into more states and facilities.

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Over the past several years, we’ve also witnessed a major shift in how prisons and correctional facilities handle mail. Many facilities now rely on centralized distribution centers where physical mail is no longer directly received by residents. Instead, mail is scanned, often only in digital black and white format at an additional cost.

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So we explored new ways to keep incarcerated people connected with their families and loved ones. This led to our launch of Ameelio Connect, a free communication platform that offers video calls, in-person visit scheduling, phone calls, and messaging services for partner facilities. 

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Since launching Connect, Ameelio has served more than 198,000 incarcerated people and their loved ones, expanding from 2 states to 16 states and 63 facilities nationwide. The number of daily active users grew sixteen-fold since 2021. Along the way, partner facilities have reported significant reductions in violence and disciplinary infractions, while Iowa recently recorded its lowest three-year recidivism rate in a decade among the cohort that utilized Ameelio’s tools.

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As we continue to see tremendous excitement around and adoption of Connect, we’ve made the decision to focus our efforts on expanding this platform and sunset our mail services. We didn’t make this decision lightly and strongly believe that this decision will allow us to bring more incarcerated people together with the people they care about.

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We’d like to invite you to learn more about our mission to connect incarcerated people with the people they care about and build a more rehabilitative corrections system. If you feel inspired to help, we encourage you to contact your state and local representatives to advocate for communication choices that don’t place unnecessary financial burdens on families simply trying to stay connected.

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Sincerely,

Team Ameelio

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You can find your state and local representatives here.