Facebook for Prisoners? California Officials Crack Down After Inmates Use Social Networking For Crime

By Dennis Romero Tue., Aug. 9 2011 at 8:01 AM

CDCR

Hello, friend.

California is cracking down on prisoners who use Facebook from behind bars, especially if they turn to social networking to threaten people or to run criminal enterprises.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced the effort this week, stating that it "has seen numerous instances in which inmates, using their Facebook accounts, have delivered threats to victims or have made unwanted sexual advances."

The CDCR says it's working with the Facebook Security Department to shutdown inmates' pages. But, interestingly, there's one exception:

If a criminal had his FB profile before he went behind bars, he can keep it, so long as he doesn't use it while locked up.

The problem, one we've documented extensively here at the Weekly: There's a flow of contraband cellphones and smartphones coming into the prison system, allowing inmates to access social networking cites.

The CDCR says more than 7,284 phones were confiscated behind bars this year.

CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate:

Access to social media allows inmates to circumvent our monitoring process and continue to engage in criminal activity.

The department gave this example of social networking gone wrong:

Last year, CDCR received a call from a mother of a victim of a child molester. The family had just returned from vacation to find several pieces of mail from the offender who was in state prison. The mail contained accurate drawings of the woman's 17-year old daughter, even though it had been at least seven years since the offender had been convicted and sent to prison. Details of the victim, such as how she wore her hair and the brand of clothes she wore were accurate. An investigation revealed the inmate had used a cell phone to find and view the MySpace and Facebook web pages of the victim. With access to the pages, the offender was able to obtain current photos, which he used to draw his pictures.

CDCR

Status: On lockdown.

Feel like you're being creeped on by an inmate via Facebook? Call the CDCR's Office of Victim and Survivor Rights and Services: 1-877-256-6877.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

Tags:

CDCR, cellphones, corrections, Facebook, MySpace, prison, prisoners, rehabilitation, social networking

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I'm gonna print this out and stick on my room What a valuable post.Thank you very much.

Sid

how hard is it to block internet access in prisons? and are they really cracking down? here is a link of a prisoner still updating daily and sending messages although i have reported it numerous times. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pro... you can also do a prison search for prisoners in the state of California and he is still there, been there since October 2010. seems to me that the officers take the phones when they need to make money from themselves, if they take the phones the inmates purchase a new phone within a few days from the same officers who took the phones for $500.00 for a non smart phone and $800 for a smart phone.. $400 profit off one phone? im sure it will never stop they make more money selling phones than their paycheck... What a wonderful crooked system we have!!! free room and board, free food, no bills, free gym, free TV, free laundry, families sending money so u have free phone and internet..... seems like my choice to get an education in life was the wrong idea!

scare tactics. These cats arent using cell phones to only conduct illegal activities, msot are using it for positive. There will always be bad ones doing illegal stuff.

Dont fall for the scare tactics.

Jasonjbarden2005

What kind of positive could they be possibly doing?

They don't get to do positive, that's why they are in prison

Socalthree

Why don't they have cell & data blockers for wireless devices installed in the prison buildings?

Gillan

So, What's wrong with them having a cell phone?

drops1

There in Prison.

Gillan

I think you mean "They're"? ha.

vakloo

I really fail to see what the big deal is?www.real-anonymity.us.tc

lakawak

IF you are going to spam you stupid website (as if anyone actually clicks on your link) you should AT LEAST read the article so you would not fail to see the common sense of the article.

Cyricc

The big deal is that most people who use social networks don't understand a thing about privacy issues. Most people would still have their complete profiles open to the public if facebook did not FORCE a privacy page update on people in the past years. Since anyone has access to these pages they can literally follow your actions online, know when you leave your house, maybe even who has the spare keys... http://pleaserobme.com/

David R

Every place that I have worked blocks access to social network sites. How hard can it be to have all prisons block access to them aswell? Prisoners should not be accessing them.

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lakawak

David..are you under the impression that these prisoners have legal access to the internet and the IT guy just forgot to block access to sites?

Prisoners are not surfing the internet. At least not regular prisoners. They MAY be granted access to law libraries online...but no prisoner at a maximum or even medium security prison is sitting at a desk in the prison library lazily surfing the internet.

Cyricc

You're talking about a network restriction set up at your workplace, this article refers to the internet connection available via cell phone services. In order to block that they would have to disable all cell phone use, which I'm sure many of the guards would have a problem with.

lakawak

Guards would have a problem having to do something that workers at most other companies have to do (not use their phones on company time)?

I am pretty sure guards are not supposed to be walking around the prison with their cell phones on them anyway. If they want to make personal calls they can do so on a break in a special room that could have access while the rest of the prison is a faraday cage.

Are you really under the impression that employees EXPECT to be able to use their cell phones on the job?