The status update looked like a typical Facebook wall post, except that it came from a California prison inmate:

"Took all the homie's 2day on the handball court," read the post, which was obviously uploaded through a mobile phone. "Smashed everybody the whole yard."

After several months of talks with the Palo Alto social-networking giant, the California Department of Corrections has begun a crackdown on inmates who are updating their Facebook walls while they are incarcerated behind real prison walls.

The department is trying to keep a lid on the problem of prisoners finding a way to use Facebook as a conduit for illegal activity on the outside, even though Internet access is prohibited in prison.

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"Access to social media allows inmates to circumvent our monitoring process and continue to engage in criminal activity," corrections Secretary Matthew Cate said in a statement posted Monday on a department blog. "This new cooperation between law enforcement and Facebook will help protect the community and potentially avoid future victims."

A recent Federal Bureau of Prisons National Gang Intelligence Center report released to law enforcement officials said there are increasing incidents of inmates using Facebook.

Law enforcement officials have received "hundreds of complaints" from crime victims who were contacted through Facebook by the inmates convicted in their cases, state prison spokeswoman Dana Toyama said Tuesday.

Last year, for example, an inmate convicted seven years earlier of child molesting mailed to the victim's family fresh drawings that accurately depicted her current clothing and hair style. An investigation showed the inmate used photos he found on Myspace and Facebook.

But Toyama said that while Facebook had a procedure in place for reporting and removing sex offenders, there wasn't a similar policy covering prison inmates. Discussions that started in October to have one Southern California inmate's account removed were only recently resolved, she said.

But Facebook has now agreed to extend the sex-offender reporting policy to cover inmates, which is spurring the crackdown, Toyama said. Law enforcement officials can verify whether the inmate is still in prison and request that Facebook take the account down, she said.

Facebook has worked with prison officials in other states and other countries to cut off prisoners' accounts. Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said he couldn't comment on specific cases, but said the best way to keep inmates off social networks is stop them from gaining access in the first place.

"If a state has decided that prisoners have forfeited their right to use the Internet, the most effective way to prevent access is to ensure prisons have the resources to keep smart phones and other devices out," Noyes said in an e-mail.

"We will disable accounts reported to us that are violating relevant U.S. laws or regulations or inmate accounts that are updated by someone on the outside. We will also take appropriate action against anyone who misuses Facebook to threaten or harass."

The state corrections department also reported a ballooning problem with illegally smuggled cell phones, which can be used to access Facebook. There were 10,760 devices confiscated in 2010 and 7,284 in the first six months of this year, which compares with just 261 mobile devices confiscated in 2006.

There is pending legislation that would make smuggling a phone to an inmate punishable by a $5,000 fine and up to six months in jail.

- Benny Evangelista