(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A California taxpayer-funded program under Gov. Gavin Newsom to provide incarcerated individuals with digital tablets was allegedly exploited to access pornographic material and even groom children outside prison walls, according to a report published Wednesday.
The Newsom administration awarded a $189 million contract for the tablets, which were provided to inmates at “no cost,” according to the City Journal. The devices were intended to help prisoners communicate with family members and access education.
Instead, however, inmates have reportedly used them to watch porn and engage in explicit sexual conversations, according to dozens of death row inmates interviewed by City Journal.
“Some prisoners, according to a former high-ranking California corrections official, use their tablets to groom minors,” the report stated. “Though the state has claimed to regulate explicit content, the inmates told us that users can easily evade detection.”
EXCLUSIVE: California spent nearly $189 million to give every state prisoner a free iPad. We interviewed a dozen death row inmates, who told us that prisoners are using the tablets to watch porn, engage in x-rated chats, and groom minors on the outside.https://t.co/bpmvDB6vPm
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) May 13, 2026
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation pushed back on the report, claiming the tablets are “tightly controlled education tools” that facilitate access to “the Bible, education, reentry resources that actually reduce crime.”
Headline USA reached out to Newsom communications director Izzy Gardon for comment outside normal business hours. No response has been received by publication.
City Journal countered the administration’s statement, asserting that the “devices have become personal sex machines” for some inmates.
One such inmate is rapist and serial murderer Robert Maury, known as the “Tipster Killer” for anonymously revealing the locations of victims’ bodies in the 1980s.
Maury told the outlet that the inmates could receive “nude pictures” and access pornographic material through video chats, including by having callers place explicit content in front of the camera.
Death-row inmate Samuel Amador said he has watched “porn” and “short clips of my family at the Beach.” He added that the inmates find alternative ways to access the explicit content when guards intervene.
Another death-row inmate, James Tucker, convicted of killing three men, reportedly said he received videos of women dancing “in a thong.” This is the type of video he reportedly uses for sexual gratification.
In another instance, Nathaniel Ray Diaz, a felon serving three years for lewd acts against a 12-year-old girl, went on to use the jail-issued tablet to sexually exploit that same child and demand sexual photos, according to a federal grand jury indictment.
He allegedly forced the girl to speak with him “for hours, every day.” The DOJ said in April 2025 that he contacted the child despite having a 10-year no-contact order.
“He instructed the minor to create and transmit to him images of the minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. When Diaz learned that someone had contacted law enforcement about the communications, he directed people to delete evidence,” the DOJ added.
Former California adult parole director Douglas Eckenrod told City Journal the Diaz case was likely far from isolated.
“I would bet my pension that there’s a vast amount of childhood pornography on the tablets,” Eckenrod said. “There are probably several thousand [children] that are currently being groomed.”
Despite those vulnerabilities, Newsom has promoted the initiative as part of his effort to overhaul California’s prison system.
“We are literally tearing down walls to reimagine our prison system, incentivize true rehabilitation, and end cycles of violence and crime,” Newsom wrote in a statement in 2024. “Brick by brick, we’re building a new future that will make all of us safer.”
According to reports, the Newsom administration agreed to pay Securus Technologies $189 million for the tablet program, expanding devices inmates already had access to beginning in 2018.
California’s prison population of roughly 90,000 inmates is set to benefit from the program.
