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| Bill to ban SC inmates from social media advances |
| By scnow.com - ELLEN MEDER |
| Published: 03/03/2012 |
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COLUMBIA, SC -- 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. Some of South Carolina’s 23,000 inmates do have computer privileges, but others still get on to sites like Facebook using smart phones that have been smuggled into prison or by having friends or family on the outside use it in their name. The bill’s author Rep. Wendell Gilliard, D-Charleston, said that two years ago he started getting emails from concerned victims saying they were either getting contacted by their perpetrators on social media or saw posts where inmates were bragging about their crimes. “When we send people to prison, they’re not there to use modern day technology to intimidate and threaten people through social media,” Gilliard said. He said without a new law there was no way to stop people on the outside from helping inmates intimidate people. Under his bill, both convicts and third parties using social media on their behalf would be subject to a $500 fine and 30 days in prison if caught. Laura Hudson, the executive director of the South Carolina Crime Victims Council, said there’s no data on how often inmates maliciously use social media, but that sometimes perpetrators contact a victim’s family or coworkers on social media because of existing restraining orders from the actual victim. She said for people who’ve already had their sense of safety compromised, this can be very frightening. Sen. Shane Martin, R-Spartanburg, sat on the Corrections and Penology meeting Thursday and said he’s had similar complaints in the Upstate and that since cell phones aren’t always found right away, the state needs to go at the problem the other way, by giving victims a specific offense to report. “You certainly don’t want to go in the privacy of your own home and get on your laptop and start through looking it and get an intimidating message from someone behind bars or someone representing that person behind bars, you shouldn’t have to go through that. You’ve already been through enough,” Martin said. Read More. |
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