Cable problems are nothing new to many Comcast subscribers, but administrators at the Liberty County Jail in Texas say they spent weeks calling the cable giant over an unusual problem: Inmates had manipulated their cable boxes to bypass content restrictions, and were watching softcore pornography for hours on end.
According to the Liberty County sheriff’s office, guards and administrators first noticed the problem last December, when inmates were seen watching pornography on Cinemax. Jail security logs obtained by ABC News reveal that guards observed inmates were at it “again” in February.
“4 Dorm watching porno channel again,” read a security log on Feb. 3. Just three days later, a guard wrote, “One of the TV’s had porn on it. Told them to change the channel.”
The jail’s warden, Tim New, said that he immediately contacted Comcast in an attempt to resolve the problem, according to KPRC-TV2. But the cable company, he says, delayed sending an engineer to the jail for weeks, claiming that it was impossible for inmates to be viewing Cinemax in their cells.
“Well, they damn sure were,” New insisted.
After interviewing past inmates at the jail, KPRC concluded that it was possible to view prohibited channels by disconnecting the set-top control boxes within each cell that regulate television content.
“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.
County Judge Craig McNair also stated that Comcast had assured him that there was no way that inmates could be watching Cinemax in their cells. According to KPRC, McNair said he had to threaten to terminate the jail’s contract with Comcast entirely before the company sent an engineer to the jail.
“Handled it right then,” McNair said.
But Comcast disputed that account, stating that it sent representatives to the jail as soon as it was notified of a problem on Feb. 7.
“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.
An official review by the county sheriff’s department is underway.
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.
Warden New said that some inmates did not have access to the pornography, including most violent offenders and rapists.
Tax dollars do not contribute to the inmates’ cable programming, which is funded by the inmates.