the development of the texas prison system, amanda clare kritsonis, criminal justice

8/14/2019 The Development of the Texas Prison System, Amanda Clare Kritsonis, Criminal Justice

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The Development of the Texas

Prison System By:

Amanda Kritsonis



The Contract Period

The Congress of the Republic of Texas defeated bills for a penal

institution in both 1840 and 1842

In May 1846, the First Legislature of the new state passed apenitentiary act, but the Mexican War prevented the law

On March 13, 1848, the legislature passed the act that began theTexas penitentiary. The law authorized three commissioners

to locate a site and choose a superintendent and threedirectors to manage the institution. Abner H. Cook was thefirst superintendent and supervised the construction.

On October 1, 1849, the first prisoner was a convicted horsethief from Fayette County. He entered the Texas StatePenitentiary facility in Huntsville. The facility had only three

prisoners, but by 1855, it housed seventy-five convicts. In 1852, the state established the office of financial agent led by

John S. Besser. Texas initially supervised its prisoners under the Auburn System, developed by penologists at the statepenitentiary in Auburn, New York. Prisoners are housedbehind enclosed walls, engaged in day labor, and retired to

their cells during the evening.



Continued By 1856, the state had built a cotton and wool mill at

Huntsville in order to make the penitentiary self-sustaining. The mill could process 500 bales of cottonand 6,000 yards of wool annually, provided money to thestate.

During the Civil War, the penitentiary sold more than twomillion yards of cotton and nearly 300,000 yards of wool

to both civilians and the government of the ConfederateStates of America. The demand for cotton and woolproducts reduced at the end of the war, but resulted infinancial difficulties as the prison population began togrow.



Lease System

The number of convicts increased from 146 prisoners to 264prisoners between the end of the Civil War and fall of 1866.

On November 12, 1866, the legislature enacted a measure thatestablished a five-member Board of Public Labor. Themembers included the governor, secretary of state,comptroller, attorney general, and state treasurer.

In February 1867, the board leased 100 prisoners to the Airliner Railroad and 150 to the Brazos Branch Railroad. The statecontracted large numbers of Texas prisoners to privateemployers over the next forty-five years.

From April 1871 to April 1877, the Ward Dewey Company of Galveston leased the entire penitentiary from the state.

Another Galveston firm leased the prison for six months, led byBurnett and Kilpatrick.

E.H Cunningham and L.A. Ellis leased the Huntsville Penitentiaryfrom January 1878 through March 1883.

Morrow, Hamby, and Company leased the new Rusk Penitentiary

from January through March 1883.



More on Leasing During the remainder of the leasing era, the state contracted

many prisoners to railroads, mining companies, andplantations, while other convicts remained at the Huntsvilleand Rusk penitentiaries.

James Gillaspie, Thomas Jewett Goree, Jonas S. Rice, SearcyBaker, and J.A. Herring are important penitentiarysuperintendents in this period.

The prison dealt with a number of managerial changes in the eraof the convict lease system.

In 1879, the legislature formalized existing practices by requiringthe governor to name three directors, with state Senateapproval, to serve two-year terms. The legislature had alsoauthorized a third penitentiary west of the Colorado River for

the production of wool, cotton, and leather. The state never built the facility.

Between 1885 and 1887, prisoners quarried granite andlimestone for the new Capitol in Austin.

Convicts also constructed the Texas State Railroad from Rusk toPalestine between 1893 and 1909.



Prison Population The prison population increased from 489 in 1870 to 1,738 by

1878.

It reached 3,199 by 1890 and 4,109 by 1900.

The number of prisoners declined during the remaining years of the convict lease, reaching 3,471 at the end of 1912.

The legislature abolished the convict lease system in 1910 over a debate and discussion.

A new law was created, causing a number of reforms. Itestablished a three-member Board of Prison Commissionersto administer the prison system. One commissioner wouldserve as the prison system’s financial agent, another wouldmanage the employees, and the third would direct theconvicts.

The leases were canceled before the end of 1912, due toexisting contracts to run until January 1914.

The prison remained a notable public issue despite the end of convict leasing.



Farm Period Prisoners worked the lands of private farm owners during the

convict lease period. The state entered into some share-

cropping arrangements and began to purchase largeplantations for commercial agricultural production.

Texas bought the 5,527-acre Clemens Farm in Brazoria Countyduring 1899 and also bought Imperial Farm in 1908.

In the conclusion of the convict lease system, the state continued

to expand prison farmlands, except for 1916 through 1918,1924, and 1927. There was no profit from them.

By 1921, state prison farms covered more than 81,000 acres.Most of the land was used for cultivation of sugarcane,cotton, corn, feed crops, and vegetables.



Texas Committee on Prisons and

Prison Labor

Financial losses and routine legislative investigations of allegedmismanagement, corruption, and poor treatment of prisonerscharacterized the system.

During the 1920s, this organization received authorization fromthe legislature to conduct an extensive survey of the prisonsystem.

Voters adopted a state constitutional amendment in 1926. Theywanted to abolish the Board of Prison Commissioners andreplace it with a nine-member Texas Prison Board.

In 1927, the new law was to hire a general manager to direct thesystem and permitted the board to set policy.

Convicts at Huntsville and Rusk penitentiaries operated modestindustrial plants, not just commercial agriculture.

They manufactured bricks, ice, wagons, railcars, lumber, brooms,paint, mattresses, iron ore, boxes, furniture, shoes, clothing,and sheet metal before the end of the convict lease system in1912.

The prison system added a printing shop, license-plate factory,and a number of food-processing plants by the 1930s.



Public Relations Texas governors avoided prison issues and looked to the Board

of Pardons and Paroles. Marshall Lee Simmons was the

general manager, who served from April 1930 to November 1935.

He could adapt at public relations and helped promote a goodimage for the prison system by having the Texas PrisonRodeo, which was performed from 1931 to 1986 at theHuntsville Penitentiary.

In 1938, a series of weekly radio broadcasts over station WBAPin Fort Worth featured an all-prisoner cast and ran for morethan five years.

Reports of unsanitary living conditions, atrocities, mysteriousdeaths of convicts, perpetrated by employees, and financialfailures led to the broadcast ending.



Period of Reform

and Stability The number of prisoners in Texas declined during World War II,

however, after the war the inmate population rose.

In January 1948, Bryan Ellis persuaded the legislature toappropriate funds to modernize the facilities and alleviateovercrowding.

In 1957, the legislature renamed the state prison agency to The

Texas Department of Corrections. The Texas Prison Board became the Texas Board of

administrative.

During the 1960s, TDC designated the Huntsville Penitentiaryand prison farms as “units” and opened several new facilities.

In 1964, a separate Diagnostic Unit was created to evaluate andclassify new prisoners.

In 1969, Windham School provided inmates in all units to receivestate foundation funds. During the 1970s, inmate populationgrew and public attitudes toward offenders hardened.



Courts Intervened

The 1970s and 1980s were a period of dramatic change in TDCdue to a growing population, the opening of new units, andincreasing legal challenges of prison management on the partof the inmates.

Practices established by the case, Ruiz v. Estelle, went in effectin 1972. It required the state to reduce overcrowding, improve

prisoner rehabilitation and recreational programs, and refrainfrom practices detrimental to a prisoner’s safety and welfare.

In 1983, the prison system established the Texas Department of Corrections Hospital at Galveston.

TDC also supervised some prisoners at halfway houses invarious cities in 1987.

In July 1988, the prison system reserved the Sky View Unit for the care of mentally ill inmates.



Succession in Prison During the 1980s, a succession of directors administered the prison

system.

TDC was in turmoil and inmate violence followed the demise of aninmate guard system.

The inmate population grew from 36,769 on August 31,1983 to39,664 at the end of August 1988. Between August 1987 andAugust 1988, the prison system had new inmates and releasedprisoners through parole, mandatory supervision, and probation.

1978-1983- The Trust-

Guard System Convicts are made into guards over other inmates.

The head of the convict system is the tier, boss who makes workassignments. They also turn inmates against other inmates.



Effective September 1, 1989 The Texas legislature changed the administrative structure of the

Texas prison system. The legislature abolished the TexasCorrections Board, the Board of Pardons and Paroles, andthe Texas Adult Probation Commission and merged into aTexas Department of Criminal Justice, supervised by a nine-member Texas Board of Criminal Justice.



Few Facts

Texas is the largest prison system inAmerica.

In the center of Huntsville is the WallsUnit. It is famously known for executions.

In July 2000, corrections officials ran out

of six-digit numbers to assign inmatesand officially created prisoner number 1,000,000.

More than one out of every five are

serving time for drug-related charges.



Reference

Texas State Historical Association (2008,

January 18). Prison system. Retrieved April 3, 2008 from the TSHA Online Website: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/ articles/PP/jjp3.html

the development of the texas prison system, amanda clare kritsonis, criminal justice

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