Darin Thompson's List: Social Media and Prisoners

• Across the U.S. and beyond, inmates are using social networks and the growing numbers of smartphones smuggled into prisons and jails to harass their victims or accusers and intimidate witnesses. California corrections officials who monitor social networking sites said they have found many instances in which inmates taunted victims or made unwanted sexual advances.
• "The ability to have these kinds of contacts is increasing exponentially. In many ways, the law has not caught up with these changing technologies," said Rob Bovett, an Oregon district attorney whose office prosecuted Gesik's ex-husband, Michael Gladney.

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  Violent criminals, including murderers, have been using Facebook to taunt victims and their families from behind bars.

• Other prisoners have been maintaining their criminal empires via the social networking site.

  Inmates are banned from accessing the internet but manage to get online by using mobile phones  smuggled into jails.

• But dozens of prisoners in Britain have found a more sinister and predatory use for Facebook: after being locked up for offenses such as murder and assault, inmates are taunting and terrorizing their victims through status updates and group wall posts.

• Twenty state prison employees suspected of smuggling cell phones to inmates have resigned or were fired in recent months.

• The Ministry of Justice says that handsets smuggled into jails are being used   by offenders to harass victims, organise gangs and deal drugs on the   outside.  

   

   It has already carried out trials of jamming equipment, which is illegal if   used in public, and is about to give portable devices to some prison   governors.

• If you know of a DOC offender who has recently established or currently maintains information on a social networking website or has obtained a cell phone while incarcerated, please report the offender’s name, assigned location, and the link to the offender’s page if possible.

• You can’t email the prisoner and must not update any social networking website on the prisoner’s behalf - eg Facebook or Twitter.

• Lawmakers are looking to stop inmates from using technology to intimidate victims and witnesses from behind bars.  

       

  Thursday, a Senate committee passed a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for an inmate to have and use a social networking account. 

• CHARLESTON, S.C. — State prisoners will face criminal penalties for using Facebook and other social media behind bars to harass crime victims, under a new state law.
• "We need to stay one step ahead of the criminal minds and keep them from using technology as a tool to threaten people on the outside," he said. "This is a major victory for victims' rights."

• A bill moving through the Alabama State House would make it illegal for state inmates to interact with the outside world through social media.
• Cell phones are the gold standard in prisons these days, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett. Prison officials confiscated more than 5,000 cell phones systemwide last year that had been smuggled behind bars.
• "They have kind of replaced drugs as the contraband of choice because a person can do so many things with it," Corbett sai

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• Thirty Facebook pages have been taken down because prisoners were using them to taunt their victims, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has said.

• Mr Straw said the 30 offending pages had been removed within 48 hours.

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  He also said he was "reassured by the co-operation which we're receiving from Facebook" and said it was agreed a better system for policing websites was needed.

• Facebook is joining forces with California prison officials to disable accounts that belong to inmates which are found to be updated while they are incarcerated.
• The partnership between CDCR and the popular social networking site was announced after California corrections official received hundreds of complaints from victims who were contacted by prison inmates behind bars.
• Andrew Noyes, spokesperson for Facebook, believes that the most effective way of preventing inmates from accessing illegal accounts is by keeping contraband cellphones out of prisoners' hands.
• Noyes promised Facebook will "take appropriate action" against anyone who uses the site to threaten or harass.

• Facebook's policies prohibit an individual other than the registered user from updating a Facebook account, which happens occasionally when an inmate asks a friend or family member to access their page.

   

  "We will disable accounts reported to us that are violating relevant U.S. laws or regulations or inmate accounts that are updated by someone on the outside," said Noyes.

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• 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."
• 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.

• Facebook is working with prison officials to delete accounts that belong to inmates that are found to be updated while they are incarcerated.
• "Access to social media allows inmates to circumvent our monitoring process and continue to engage in criminal activity," CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate said in a statement. "This new cooperation between law enforcement and Facebook will help protect the community and potentially avoid future victims."

• A Pennsylvania prison inmate is waging a novel legal battle -- for a supposed First Amendment right to Facebook. 

   

   Mark Nixon, who is incarcerated in Frackville, Pa., filed a federal civil rights lawsuit after he was denied access to printouts of Facebook pages sent through the U.S. mail, which prison officials labeled "unacceptable correspondence" and discarded. 

   

   A federal appeals court rejected his lawsuit on Friday, ruling that Nixon had not demonstrated that his First Amendment rights -- which are limited during his incarceration -- have been violated.

• The appeals court recognized that inmates do not forfeit all of their constitutional rights, including the right to free speech, when they enter prison. However, the court also noted that “inmates’ right to receive and send mail can be restricted for legitimate penological interests.”
• The appeals court did not answer whether the continued destruction of mail simply because it is printed from Facebook would violate the First Amendment.

• The American Civil Liverties Union (ACLU) disagrees. They oppose the proposed South Carolina law and fought a similar measure in Arizona in 2003. Although ACLU officials agree that inmates shouldn’t be allowed unrestricted access to cell phones, they argue a proposed ban on posting to social networking sites would infringe on an inmate’s first amendment rights.

   

  “Efforts of this kind are just an attempt to beat up on prisoners because we don’t like them,” said David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “The First Amendment protects speech, even if it’s speech that some people don’t want to see. The response to seeing something that you don’t like on the Internet is, don’t look at it.”

• Heath Lara, a prison sergeant at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, was fired from his job after officials learned that he had friended inmate Gary Wayne Sanders on Facebook. Sergeant Lara was dismissed for violating a rule that prohibits fraternization between officers and prisoners.
• The appeal was initially denied but later upheld, and Sergeant Lara was reinstated two weeks ago. A review found that Sergeant Lara had no real relationship with the inmate.

• Craig   "Lazie" Lynch vanished from Hollesley Bay Prison in   Suffolk in September this year close to the end of a seven-year sentence for   aggravated burglary.  

   

   Instead of hiding away from police Lynch has set up a Facebook   account complete with a photograph sticking his middle finger up and boasts   about eating 12lb steaks and his home being so warm it feels like the   Caribbean.