Inmates at the Liberty County Jail in Texas managed to outwit Comcast’s set top boxes to watch “hours on end” of soft-core pornography for free, courtesy of the cable company.
Jail Warden Tim New claimed he spent weeks trying to get Comcast technicians out to the county facility to fix the problem — one that Comcast denied could be happening.
“4 Dorm watching porno channel again,” read one February security log obtained by ABC News. Just three days later, a guard wrote, “One of the TV’s had porn on it. Told them to change the channel.”
“I believe that Comcast just couldn’t believe that their system had been manipulated,” Capt. Rex Evans with the Liberty Count sheriff’s office told ABC.
It turns out bypassing the cable boxes effectively opened every channel up for viewing.
It finally took a threat from County Judge Craig McNair to cancel Comcast service in the jail to get the cable company to dispatch a technician.
“Once Liberty County made us aware the inmates had access to Cinemax, we took the necessary steps to block access to the channel,” a representative for the cable company said.
Inmates told KPRC that there would be “a lot of fights” because of the porn sessions and that showers had become “hell” because of Cinemax.
[flv width=”624″ height=”372″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KPRC Houston Nightly porno TV shows for inmates prompt action by county leaders 2-29-12.flv[/flv]
KPRC-TV in Houston covers a porn scandal inside Liberty County jails. Public safety officials blame Comcast for not pulling the plug on the adult programming. (3 minutes)
Why do they Texas Inmates has any access to TV via Comcast TV or Free TV. Only thing these Inmates should have access to is Static TV.
Inmates have to pay for the service out of their own pockets (but I’ll bet the county gets a piece of the action — I’m surprised Texas would even allow televisions in the prison). Taxpayers don’t pay for the cable. But they -do- pay for the enhanced security that is required when nonsense like this gets out of hand.