Gavin Newsom has sought to transform California’s massive prison system into a Nordic-style rehabilitation program. Newsom has placed a moratorium on all executions, transferred condemned prisoners to facilities across the state, and dismantled San Quentin State Prison’s death row. As part of this transformation, the Newsom administration approved a $189 million contract to provide new digital tablets — generic, flat-screen devices in a plastic shell — to every inmate in the state prison system, at “no cost” to offenders. The administration heralded the effort to replace inmates’ old tablets — which were piloted in 2018 and given to nearly all...