NCIC

In order to modernize an otherwise outdated communication system, NCIC Inmate Communications, the longest-running Telecom carrier in the Inmate telephone industry, hired 64 Robots to build a highly sophisticated inmate visitation system, including a state of the art video chat solution.

NCIC, in partnership with 64 Robots, nationally raised the bar for prison visitation systems by developing an ethical and user-forward communication application. Through a research-centered approach, we built video chat software, making prison visitation accessible for everyone.

Visit website

The Solution

NCIC is changing the way prison visitation works. We partnered with them to create a friendly, ethical prison visitation and inmate chat application, raising the bar for prison visitation systems around the world.

The prison system is not a friendly place for visitors or prisoners. We took an ethical approach to this project, doing heavy research and design work to ensure that the software was respectful of its users' complex situations.

The Architecture

Complex applications need a thoughtful implementation. NCIC required no fewer than four separate frontend applications to power their system. The final breakdown of projects is:

Laravel Backend with REST API to be consumed by the various frontend application
Inmate application as a Vue SPA
Visitor application as a Vue SPA
Scheduling application as a Vue SPA
Facility administration application as a Vue SPA

The frontend applications share a lot of common code and use Lerna to allow us to keep them as a monorepo with shared assets between projects for efficient builds and common implementation across each application.

The Result

64 Robots has been working with NCIC for over 2 years now building and maintaining this application. We've seen the value it creates within the facilities it's used in and the positive feedback from the users versus the competing applications within this space. With COVID-19, we've really seen how valuable it is to have an application like this so inmates can still communicate with their family members even during a long quarantine.