Gavin Newsom has sought to transform California’s massive prison system into a Nordic-style rehabilitation program. Newsom has placed a moratorium on all executions, transferred condemned prisoners to facilities across the state, and dismantled San Quentin State Prison’s death row.

As part of this transformation, the Newsom administration approved a $189 million contract to provide new digital tablets — generic, flat-screen devices in a plastic shell — to every inmate in the state prison system, at “ no cost ” to offenders.

The administration heralded the effort to replace inmates’ old tablets — which were piloted in 2018 and given to nearly all prisoners by 2023 — as a step toward “ digital equity ” for “justice impacted” individuals .…