California spent $180 million of your tax dollars to hand out 90,000 tablets to prison inmates under the banner of "digital equity" and "rehabilitation." The stated goal was education, family communication, and reentry preparation. The actual result? Convicted murderers watching pornography on death row. Because of course that's what happened. It's California.
Taxpayer-funded iPads for prisoners — because apparently cable TV, three meals a day, and a gym membership weren't enough.
The Gateway Pundit reports that the state's multimillion-dollar tablet program, sold to the public as a way to connect prisoners to educational resources and the outside world, has been thoroughly hijacked. Inmates at the state prison in Stockton — including those on death row — have figured out how to bypass the devices' built-in security controls and are using them to access pornography, send nude images, and generally treat their taxpayer-funded electronics like a frat house laptop.
Robert Maury, a serial rapist and killer who murdered at least three women in the 1980s and currently sits on death row at the Stockton facility, told the California Post that "inmates can evade security controls on the devices." He described inmates using the tablets' video chat function to have outside contacts display pornography on a television, effectively allowing prisoners to "put porn on their TV" through a loophole the state apparently never thought to close.
So let's walk through this. California's government — under the enlightened leadership of Governor Gavin Newsom — decided the most pressing issue in the state's prison system wasn't overcrowding, recidivism, or gang violence. It was making sure convicted felons had screen time. They spent $180 million distributing 90,000 devices, and the security was so airtight that a death row inmate is openly bragging to reporters about how easy it is to get around it.
This is the same state that can't keep the lights on during a heat wave. The same state that told law-abiding citizens they couldn't buy ammo without a background check. The same state that has actual tent cities lining every freeway on-ramp from San Diego to Sacramento. But sure — making sure a guy who raped and killed three women has a tablet? Top priority.
The "digital equity" program was supposed to help inmates send and receive messages, access educational content, and prepare for life after release. Noble goals, if you ignore the fact that a significant number of these inmates are never getting released. Maury, for example, is on death row. What exactly is his "reentry plan"? A nice LinkedIn profile?
Here's the part that should make every taxpayer in California — and every American whose federal dollars prop up that state — absolutely furious. They didn't just buy these tablets. They bought 90,000 of them. At $180 million. That's $2,000 per device for what is essentially a locked-down Android tablet. Your kid's school probably can't afford new textbooks, but a convicted murderer in Stockton has a screen he can use to watch porn on the state's dime.
And when the security failures came to light? Crickets. No firings. No program suspension. No accountability. Just the same bureaucratic shrug that California has perfected over decades of spending other people's money on programs that sound compassionate and deliver chaos.
This is what happens when government treats criminals better than citizens. $180 million for inmate tablets while the rest of California can't afford rent. Welcome to the Golden State.