Software

VendEngine delivers 40M free connections to incarcerated individuals

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January 21, 2021

VendEngine, a cloud-based software provider focused on the government payments and corrections markets, has provided more than 40 million free connections — texts, emails and video visitation — to incarcerated individuals across the nation to ease the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a press release. To date, the program has delivered 30 million in free minutes – more than 57 years to over 75,000 families nationwide.

The services, which will continue throughout 2021, are part of an emergency program VendEngine deployed in March of 2020 when the crisis began. The services allow inmates to deposit funds on a website or a jail kiosk.

"The pandemic has impacted all of our lives, and greatly disrupted our world," Silas Deane, president and CEO of VendEngine, said in the press release. "This is especially true with the incarcerated and their families. COVID-19 created greater need and increased demand for technology to keep families connected to their loved ones in an era of quarantine and social distancing."

To date, VendEngine has delivered free communications totaling more than 40 million in free messages and visitations, including 178,187 free family video visitation sessions; over 30 million in free video visitation minutes; and10.9 million free electronic messages (3.5 million free texts and 7.4 million emails).

For an update on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the kiosk industry, click here.