Under Governor Gavin Newsom, California has quietly built one of the most expansive “digital equity” experiments in the country—not in public schools, but inside its prisons. The state has rolled out roughly 90,000 electronic tablets to incarcerated people under a multimillion‑dollar contract that could cost taxpayers up to $315 million, with a core value of $189 million over six years. Officials sold the project as a humane, modern tool to help inmates stay connected to family, access education, and prepare for life after release. But according to an emerging wave of reporting and firsthand accounts from behind bars, a very different reality has taken root on California’s death row.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has promoted the tablet initiative as a way to offer “safe, secure technology” that allows inmates to communicate with loved ones, join rehabilitative programs, and develop basic digital literacy. On paper, the devices are supposed to function like restricted, monitored e‑readers and communication tools—providing access to the Bible, coursework, reentry resources, and limited entertainment. The theory is simple: if inmates can maintain family ties, learn skills, and prepare for reentry, they are less likely to reoffend and return to prison.
In practice, some of the most dangerous inmates in the state say they’ve found ways to turn these tablets into something else entirely. A detailed City Journal/California Post investigation contacted dozens of death row prisoners who described how the devices are routinely used to watch p0rn, trade explicit images, and have sexually charged conversations. In other words, a project touted as a rehabilitative lifeline has become, for some inmates, a taxpayer‑funded pipeline to the most base forms of online gratification.
The accounts coming out of California’s death row are graphic and remarkably consistent. One inmate, serial rapist and convicted murderer Robert Maury, told reporters he has used his state‑issued tablet to receive nude pictures and view p0rnographic content. Maury described one instance in which a 22‑year‑old German psychology student sent him a topless photo as part of a “class project,” after which he admitted he flirted with her for a while.
Maury also explained a workaround that turns supposedly filtered video calls into live p0rn streams. Through the tablet’s video chat app, he said an inmate can call someone on the outside who then plays explicit material on their television. The tablet’s camera simply captures whatever is on the screen, effectively letting the inmate “watch with them” in real time while skirting content filters.
Another death row inmate, serial killer Samuel Amador, confirmed that explicit videos are shared in short 30‑second clips, alongside sexually explicit conversations. He openly described his routine as a rotation between p0rn and wholesome footage, bluntly summarizing his tablet usage by saying, “I watch porn an[d] short clips of my family at the Beach.”
Yet another inmate, convicted killer Jamar Tucker, reported receiving videos of women “dancing … in a thong” on his tablet, despite official rules that prohibit such material on the system. He went on to say that he uses the racy photos for sexual gratification—again, on a device that the state insists is tightly controlled and heavily monitored.
If the system is supposed to be locked down, how are inmates getting away with this? According to the prisoners themselves, the answer is that the controls are more porous than the state wants to admit. Amador, Maury, and others say the explicit clips, photos, and chats slip through content filters with relative ease, either because they are mis‑categorized by automated systems or because they arrive in short, coded bursts that are hard to flag.
At least one inmate put it bluntly: “We get around their bullsh*t.” In their telling, the tablet ecosystem has become a cat‑and‑mouse game where the state attempts to block explicit content on the front end while inmates and their contacts on the outside continually adjust, repackage, and mask the material.
A former high‑ranking California corrections official offered an even darker warning, saying he would “bet [his] pension” that there is a “vast amount” of child sexual abuse material circulating on the tablets. He claimed that several thousand minors could be in the process of being groomed via these devices, as some inmates use their digital access to target vulnerable teenagers online. While those specific claims are difficult to independently verify, they underscore the stakes of handing near‑real‑time communication tools to some of the worst offenders in the system.
Source: #SeekingTheTruth » Feed
