No Social Media for Texas Inmates

            The Texas Department of Criminal Justice monitors letters and visits by prisoners with their 

family or friends and since they don’t have internet access while incarcerated, this is their only form 

of communication. So prisoners have active social media accounts that their family and friends post 

for them on to ask for help, advice, or just vent about their life on which often helps them with their 

adjustment back into society after being released from prison. But the TDCJ wants to prohibit this 

from happening anymore.

            Not only does this violate the prisoners First Amendment rights, but also the First 

Amendment rights of those running the accounts for the prisoners. The TDCJ claims that inmates 

through social media “sell items over the internet based on the notoriety of their crime, harass victims 

or victim’s families, and continue their criminal activity.” They have even made it so that the 

prisoners can be punished for the activities of the third parties and can take away any contact with 

outside people meaning they couldn’t have the social media account through them anymore anyways. 

Many people are starting to speak out against this because the government is overreaching it’s power 

and this is unconstitutional.

To read more visit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wallis-nader/texas-wants-to-prevent-in_b_9742846.html