May 29, 2026: Investing in a New Server

We’re continuing to invest in the technology infrastructure that allows Prison Professors to serve our growing community. This week, we committed to purchasing a new server, along with additional memory, at a cost that exceeds $25,000.

This investment is necessary because our community continues to grow. More than 7,500 people now use Prison Professors to memorialize the steps they’re taking to prepare for success upon release. Many of those individuals, along with their family members, send us emails, journals, book reports, biographies, release plans, and other updates. Each message represents a person working to build a record of preparation.

As our community expands, we have to make strategic decisions about how to serve people more efficiently. One option would be to grow into a larger customer-service operation, employing many people to read, sort, and respond to thousands of messages. Another option is to invest in technology that allows us to build stronger systems. We believe the better long-term strategy is to make capital investments that help us scale our artificial intelligence engine, improve our workflows, and prepare for the growth we anticipate when tablets become more widely available.

Because of the current demand for AI-related technology across the country, we expect to wait approximately five weeks before receiving the new server. In the meantime, we will continue building, learning, and improving the systems that support our community.

Recently, I learned that only about 13 percent of our users are updating their profiles regularly. We must develop a better strategy to increase that number. The challenge is not a lack of interest or potential. Many people in prison face real barriers. They do not have much in the way of financial resources. Although Prison Professors provides books and lessons at no cost to active members of our community, participants still must pay for postage or email credits to send us their responses. If they cannot afford those costs, their profiles do not get built.

We hope that the introduction of tablets will create more opportunities for two-way communication with the thousands of people in our community. The investments we are making now will help us serve them better when that time comes.

Our mission requires us to keep building. We want to create systems that help more people memorialize their preparation, strengthen their release plans, and show the work they are doing to earn greater levels of liberty through merit.