PrisonMail compliance preflight

Helps families sending mail to prisons check and fix it before printing so letters stop getting rejected

Problem

A private mail-sending service for US prisons is struggling because scanning and compliance review is impossible to keep up with and letters get returned. Families want to send letters to incarcerated loved ones but cannot figure out each facility's rules for paper, ink, photos, and envelope format. Rules are scattered across state and facility websites and change often.

Solution

Structure the mail rules of major US prisons into a database and let users upload letters or photos for automatic OCR checks and correction suggestions. Export a compliant PDF for printing, optionally with a send service. The rule base grows through crowdsourced corrections from users.

Users

Families of incarcerated people, small prison mail-forwarding services, legal aid nonprofits

MVP

Enter mail rules for 50 major facilities; upload letters or photos to check size, format, and prohibited content; export a one-page compliance report and printable PDF; log rejection reasons to improve the rule base; search rules by facility name

Revenue

Per-letter fee (e.g. $1.99 per check+export) plus margin on send service; API subscription for prison mail-forwarding businesses

Why now

AI-written mail and remote sending are growing while prison scanning remains a manual bottleneck; indies can start with a lightweight rule base instead of integrating every facility