BILL NUMBER:  SB 525
  VETOED	DATE: 09/29/2010




To the Members of the California State Senate:

I am returning Senate Bill 525 without my signature.

Over the last few years, the proliferation of wireless communication
devices in California's prisons has become one of the most
challenging issues facing the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation.  As technology has advanced and these devices have
become smaller and more powerful, the threat these devices pose to
employees in correctional facilities and the public at large has
grown.  These devices allow inmates to plan prison assaults and
escapes, harass and intimidate witnesses and victims, and facilitate
other criminal activities, including directing the activities of
criminal street gangs and authorizing murders.

In response to this serious threat, my Administration launched
programs to conduct random searches at prisons, established a
committee to study cell phone jamming and detection techniques, and
even utilized trained dogs to aid in uncovering contraband devices.
In 2009, my administration sponsored legislation to make possession
of an unauthorized wireless communication device in prison a felony.
Unfortunately, the Legislature failed to pass this commonsense
measure.

Over a year later, the Legislature has passed this measure, which
does not make it a crime for an inmate to possess a wireless
communications device in a prison.  Instead, this measure would only
make it a crime to bring a wireless device into a prison with the
intent to furnish it to an inmate, a crime that would only be
punishable by a $5,000 fine.  Although our prisons continue to face
drastic budget cuts and overcrowding, it is inexcusable to treat the
threat of wireless communications devices in prisons so lightly.
Signing this measure would mean that smuggling a can of beer into a
prison carries with it a greater punishment than delivering a cell
phone to the leader of a criminal street gang.

I applaud the author for attempting to address this issue and
acknowledge that this may, in fact, be the strongest measure that
will emerge from the Legislature on this issue.  And while signing
this measure might be better than nothing, I cannot sign a measure
that does so little.  I urge the Legislature to pass a measure that
will deter the conduct of persons smuggling wireless communication
devices into prisons with the threat of jail time as well as punish
the inmates who are caught possessing these devices.


For these reasons, I am unable to sign this bill.

Sincerely,



Arnold Schwarzenegger