The Problem
InmateMall saw a niche issue and sought out a Django development company that could help them solve the problem. They paired their vision with the skills of the Idea Maker team to create a service that would prove to be life-changing for those behind bars and their families. Time can create a distance between people, and InmateMall works hard to reduce that distance by offering better ways to communicate.
When a friend or loved one is incarcerated, they may be moved between facilities or be housed in a facility that isn’t local to their contacts. When they try to make phone calls to their friends and family, they can incur long-distance charges or be denied contact because the number isn’t local. Another difficulty that people who are incarcerated deal with is texting with friends and family or receiving photos through text.
Our Solution
InmateMall is a company that decided the families of the incarcerated needed service to alleviate the wedge driven between families by incarceration by giving them better options for communication. Idea Maker created a website that sells local phone numbers to inmates that can then be assigned to loved ones. Their calls are forwarded to the friend or family members’ live number, avoiding the long-distance charges.
Family and friends can send photos and text messages from these numbers to the InmateMall service center. They are then printed and forwarded through the prison communications system to the inmate. This has provided inmates a connection to their loved ones despite their incarceration. The inmate can purchase the packages with their funds or from a family member on the outside.
Django Development Company
Our specialists created a framework from Django to build the service around. This included the back office dashboard for the page admin to process SMS messages and MMS images to the prison communication systems.
Django is a great software development option for businesses that sell unusual services because a designer or admin can significantly customize it for the niche market you’re pursuing. Take a look at some of our other Django development projects.
What We Did
The website and service center includes an integrated payment processing system through Stripe for the secured movement of funds. Customers can send payments sent from within the prison finances system or from the outside.
Along with accepting and processing payments, working with stripe for financial transactions allows administrators to process financial reports and make decisions about new services and options to offer in the future.
Within the system, staff can coordinate messages to be sent to and from the intended recipient without waiting for USPS wait times and other shipping delays. Messages are conveyed quickly and efficiently from sender to inmate through the system admin dashboard.
With the framework in place, as technology adjusts and more offers are made available, the system administration dashboard will allow for new packages to be added and new options to be described.
Inmates come from different backgrounds and may find themselves incarcerated for long periods. The packages offered are varied in price and function to accommodate these differences. Packages range in price depending on the services being purchased. A basic phone plan will be less expensive than a text and pictures plan.
Providing options through an eCommerce platform allows the client to provide more for their customers with less clutter and user-friendly processes.
Client Success Stories
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Their customer service is excellent — they’re incredibly accessible and available, which I appreciate. Furthermore, they have enough experience and bandwidth to fulfill all my needs. They’re one of the best vendors I’ve worked with.
Oscar Martinez
Project Manager
Idea Maker's portfolio is what drew us in. Their design style was in alignment with what we were after. We had initial consultations with 3 companies that we had narrowed it down to. Once we had our initial meeting with Tom at Idea Maker we knew we had the right choice to make. Their communication style works well for us.
JR Krebs
Project Lead, Legal Company
I have never had a site like this built before. I felt that Idea Maker and Tom had built numerous sites like this, and they were pros.
Ryan Beachum
Founder & CEO, HelloVacay
This is a boutique development firm where the Founder is directly involved with the project and the primary contact. This is unlike many development firms where you are simply handed off to developers that are not stakeholders. This is an important distinction that results in much better project accountability.
John Larkin
CEO, Advance CPE
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Brennan Lodge
Founder, BLodgic LLC
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