History
In 1848, the Texas Legislature passed "An Act to Establish a State Penitentiary", which created an oversight board to manage the treatment of convicts and administration of the penitentiaries. Land was acquired in Huntsville and Rusk for later facilities.
The prison system began as a single institution, located in Huntsville. A second prison facility, Rusk Penitentiary, began receiving convicts in January 1883. Before the Ruiz v. Estelle court case, the Texas Department of Corrections had 18 units, including 16 for males and 2 for females.
Various administrative changes where the organization of the managing board of the department occurred over the next one hundred years.
In 1921 George W. Dixon of The Prison Journal published a report on the Texas Prison System facilities. His article stated that the prisons were among the most "brutal" in the world. Dixon said that the prisons featured corporal punishment such as whipping, beatings, and isolation.
In 1989, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Board of Criminal Justice were created. The Board is composed of nine members appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate to six-year overlapping terms. This new agency absorbed the functions of three state agencies; the Texas Department of Corrections, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, and the Texas Adult Probation Commission.
In the 1980s the government of Texas began building more prisons. During that decade impoverished rural communities saw the prisons as a boon as they provided jobs.
In 1987 the Texas State Board of Corrections voted to build two new 2,250 inmate maximum security prisons in Gatesville and Amarillo and several 1,000 inmate medium security prisons in Liberty County, Marlin, Snyder, and Woodville. The TDC units in Amarillo and Snyder were the first ones located outside of Central Texas and East Texas.
According to a December 2007 survey of prisoners from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, five TDCJ units, Allred Unit, Clemens Unit, Coffield Unit, Estelle Unit, and Mountain View Unit, were among those in the United States with the highest numbers of reported prison rape cases in the year 2006 . In 2007 the TDCJ reported that there were a total of 234 reported sexual assaults in its prisons. Michelle Lyons, the TDCJ spokesperson, said "The actual reports we have are not consistent with the results in the survey. But because it's anonymous, there's no way for us to verify that additional number."
In 2008 the TDCJ planned to install cell phone jamming devices at its units, but encountered resistance from cell phone companies.
Read more about this topic: Texas Department Of Criminal Justice
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