[NY Post] Gavin Newsom has sought to transform California’s massive prison system into a Nordic-style rehabilitation program. Newsom has placed a moratorium on all executions, transferred condemned prisoners to facilities across the state, and dismantled San Quentin State Prison’s death row.
As part of this transformation, the Newsom administration approved a $189 million contract to provide new digital tablets — generic, flat-screen devices in a plastic shell — to every inmate in the state prison system, at "no cost" to offenders.
The administration heralded the effort to replace inmates’ old tablets — which were piloted in 2018 and given to nearly all prisoners by 2023 — as a step toward "digital equity" for "justice impacted" individuals. The prisoners could, in theory, use the devices to contact their families, consume "educational" content, and "learn new technology."
Gavin Newsom has sought to transform California’s massive prison system into a Nordic-style rehabilitation program.
As part of this transformation, the Newsom administration approved a $189 million contract to provide new digital tablets.
In reality, taxpayer-funded tablets have also been used for more lurid endeavors.
We contacted dozens of death-row inmates, who told us that prisoners in the state system use their devices to watch pornography and have explicit sexual conversations. Some prisoners, according to a former high-ranking California corrections official, use their tablets to groom minors.
Though the state has claimed to regulate explicit content, the inmates told us that users can easily evade detection.
When reached for comment, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the tablets were "tightly controlled education tools" that provided inmates with "access to the Bible, education, and reentry resources that actually reduce crime."
But inmates told us a different story.
In the 1980s, rapist and serial murderer Robert Maury killed a woman by strangling her with a nylon clothesline, strangled and killed another two women, and brutally raped a fourth before he was caught by authorities.
When reached for comment, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the tablets were "tightly controlled education tools" that provided inmates with "access to the Bible, education, and reentry resources that actually reduce crime." Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Now, Maury is living at a state prison facility in Stockton, California, where he has viewed pornography on his taxpayer-funded digital tablet.
In an interview, Maury told us inmates can receive "nude pictures" and watch pornography through their devices. In his case, he claimed to have received a topless photo from a 22-year-old German psychology student who was "hoping that I would share my story with her for her class project." After the student sent the photo, Maury said he "flirted" with her "for a while."
Maury said another way that inmates can watch pornography is through the video chat application. In this scheme, he explained, an inmate can call someone on the outside, that person can "put porn on their TV," and the inmate can "watch with them."
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