Governor Gavin Newsom’s $189 million project for California prisons includes terms like “digital equity” for the “justice-impacted”, which is just about the fluffiest way to describe death row inmates watching porn while incarcerated.
According to reporting from City Journal and Daily Wire, California death row inmates have allegedly used taxpayer-funded prison tablets to view pornography and receive explicit material while evading security controls. The state says the tablets are tightly controlled tools for education, reentry resources and religious materials. Inmates report using the tablets for pornography consumption.
Prisoners may access legitimate materials. Scripture, clergy, legal resources and tightly controlled family communication are among the intended uses. It does not restore conscience. It trains the soul in use, fantasy and domination.
Pornography works against positive transformation and promotes violent and deviant behavior. It pulls a man away from repentance and back toward lewd consumption. If the state is going to keep condemned men alive, it owes victims and taxpayers something more serious than a screen with loopholes.
It is conceivable that rehabilitation funding might include access to good books and associated instruction on deepening understanding of literature. Recovery groups, especially twelve step programs, provide tactical ways to transform the mind. Many a person have undergone spiritual conversion through access to positively formative information in a controlled setting. The conditions for untrustworthy people must be controlled closely. “Digital equity” isn’t the proper aim. Increased access alone does nothing to develop moral agency. Nothing about the structure of Newsom’s program is rehabilitative according to the alleged best evidence based therapeutic practices in the U.S..
Where there is published rationale citing the program’s aim at supporting rehabilitation, reentry, education, and family/community connectivity (why do we want prison inmates to have connection to the community at all?), there are no published compliance analyses linking the $189 million project to evidence-based rehabilitation standards like Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), outcome tracking, or victim-safety safeguards. If these standards are hallmarks of rehabilitative efforts grounded in a plethora of therapeutic evidence, why are they surreptitiously absent from this program claiming nine-figures of taxpayer dollars?
By this disparity between funding and clinical logic, digital access could be viewed as criminogenic. In fewer words: this was a ridiculous blunder that’s too dumb for inadvertency to be believable. This was an ill-conceived project sold to the public with mere slogans, and it fell apart immediately.
This is not a hypothetical concern. In April 2025, federal prosecutors charged California inmate Nathaniel Ray Diaz with child sexual exploitation offenses. According to the Justice Department, Diaz was serving a sentence for lewd acts against a 12-year-old and criminal threats when he allegedly used prison phones, a CDCR-issued tablet and monitored messaging equipment to communicate with the minor despite a 10-year no-contact order. Prosecutors said he placed thousands of calls and instructed the child to create sexually explicit images. The charges remain allegations unless proven, but the case exposes the obvious risk: prison communication systems can become tools of continued predation.
And yet, while incredible sums of money are spent ensuring that inmates participate in “digital equity” programs (again, with the slogans and the spin), pregnant women in custody still need advocates to fight for humane treatment, prenatal care, safe transport, protection from restraints, labor dignity and postpartum support. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in 2024 that comprehensive national data on pregnant women in prisons and jails does not even exist, though limited Department of Justice (DOJ) data showed 4% to 5% of women reported being pregnant at admission. GAO also noted challenges in coordinating outside medical appointments for pregnant inmates.
The state can manage tablets for tens of thousands of prisoners, but America still lacks comprehensive data on pregnant incarcerated women? That tells us our institutions move quickly when the request is framed as access, equity or reform. They move much more slowly when the issue is maternal dignity, female safety, or child protection. Inevitably, the line of questioning continues to: which populations are advantageous for Newsom to protect? Which alleged minority group incites the most public sympathy from his voter base? Surely it wouldn’t be mothers. Newsom’s pro-abortion and anti-family platform doesn’t leave much room for these contradictions in concern.
A serious society can believe in mercy while still having boundaries. It can allow prisoners access to Bibles without providing digitized pathways to pornography. It can permit legal communication without enabling contact with victims. It can care for inmates without forgetting their crimes.
The scandal is not merely that condemned men may have watched porn on taxpayer-funded tablets.
The scandal is that anyone needed to be reminded why that is obscene.
If you are interested in hearing more about the impact of pornography, check out this episode of Rebranding Motherhood.
Jillian Tymo is a researcher, writer, and host of the podcast Rebranding Motherhood produced by ProLove Ministries. She examines culture, politics, and religion through her work and academic studies at Georgetown University.