Texas prison officials determined that Facebook friendships alone do not violate the ban on fraternization between prisoners and staff, according to an American-Statesman news story.
The decision came after a correctional sergeant at Huntsville State Prison was fired last May for being Facebook friends with an inmate at the prison.
Huntsville Warden James Jones fired Heath Lara, the correctional sergeant, according to the report. The regional director upheld the decision.
Lara appealed because the prisoner, Gary Wayne Sanders, who is currently serving 72 years for a 1990 murder conviction, was “merely a high-school acquaintance.” Lara said he did not know Sanders was a prisoner at the institution where he was employed, the report states.
Through his own efforts, Lara found that Sanders was Facebook friends with more than a dozen other correctional employees, including Jerry McGinty, the director of finance for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, according to the report. According to Jason Clark, a representative for the department, McGinty was also unaware that Sanders was incarcerated.
Because of this revelation, Lara, a 10-year veteran with the department with no previous rule violations, was reinstated.
“Additional investigation showed he had no relationship with this inmate,” Clark said. “There was no correspondence or anything. There was no security concern there,”
Facebook is a social networking site where, among other things, users can contact and maintain ties with long lost friends and relatives. Users type in the name of the person they wish to befriend, and it is then up to the other party to accept or deny the friendship request.
In the months following Lara’s case, many wardens have ordered investigations into Texas prison guards’ Facebook accounts. At least three other employees have been fired for having Facebook friends who are either currently or formerly incarcerated, and many say they have been ordered to remove anyone they do not personally know from their friends.