Clemens Unit (CN) is a

prison farm A prison farm (also known as a penal farm) is a large correctional facility where penal labor convicts are forced to work on a farm legally and illegally (in the wide sense of a productive unit), usually for manual labor, largely in the open ai ...

of the

Texas Department of Criminal Justice The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is a department of the government of the U.S. state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails ...

(TDCJ) in

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

Brazoria County, Texas Brazoria County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population of the county was 372,031. The county seat is Angleton. Brazoria County is included in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metropolitan sta ...

, in

Greater Houston Greater Houston, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States, encompassing nine counties along the Gulf Co ...

. The prison, with about , is located at the intersection of Farm to Market Road 2004 and

Texas State Highway 36 State Highway 36 (SH 36) runs from Freeport to Abilene. It was designated as the 36th Division Memorial Highway between Cameron and Sealy by the Texas Legislature in 1985. History SH 36 was originally proposed on November 21, 1917, as a route ...

.Clemens Unit
."

. Retrieved on January 17, 2010. The prison, in the

Texas Gulf Coast Texas Gulf Coast is an intertidal zone which borders the coastal region of South Texas, Southeast Texas, and the Texas Coastal Bend. The Texas coastal geography boundaries the Gulf of Mexico encompassing a geographical distance relative bear ...

region,Castlebury, Glen.
Texas' Youthful Offender Program
" '' Corrections Today''. October 1, 2002. Retrieved on November 19, 2010. is in proximity to the City of Brazoria, and it is in proximity to the Velasco community, now a part of Freeport.Convict Leasing and State Account Farming (1883–1909)
" Texas State Library and Archives. Retrieved on April 29, 2011. The prison is situated south of

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

History

In 1890 William C. Clemens, the chairman of the Texas Prison Board, purchased an initial parcel of land from the Huntington Estate for $4,126.''Texas Department of Criminal Justice''. Turner Publishing Company, 2004
62
. The prison, named after Clemens,
"

. Retrieved on July 21, 2010. opened in 1893. The State of Texas bought the entire prison, then , in 1899.Texas Prison System
" Handbook of Texas. Retrieved on March 8, 2011. The property included the William Clemens mill and sugar plantation. The prison was the first state prison in Brazoria County. The state later added a neighboring plantation, making Clemens have of land. The state purchased additional acreage, bringing the prison to a total of . In 1935 Clemens housed African-American prisoners when the system was segregated.Trulson, Chad R., James W. Marquart, and Ben M. Crouch. ''First Available Cell: Desegregation of the Texas Prison System''.

University of Texas Press The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books and journals in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texan ...

, 2009, pp. 82–82
81
Retrieved from ''

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

'' on July 16, 2010. . In 1963, before racial desegregation occurred, the facility housed first offender African Americans. In the mid-1990s, the

(TDCJ) removed older violent offenders from the institution and replaced them with younger offenders; most of them were 25 or younger. The administration segregated younger prisoners from the others; the inmates called their area a "kiddie farm."Berryhill, Michael. "What Really Happened To Rodeny Hulin?" ''

Houston Press The ''Houston Press'' is an online newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown area. It was also a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported entirely by advertising ...

''. August 7, 1997
5
Retrieved on January 17, 2010 In 1995 the State of Texas lowered its minimum age at which a juvenile can be tried as an adult from 15 to 14. Wayne Scott, the executive director of the TDCJ, established the Youth Offender Program, to house prisoners 14 to 16 years old who were sentenced as adults, new arrivals aged 17–20, and prisoners transferred out of the

Texas Youth Commission The Texas Youth Commission (TYC) was a Texas state agency which operated juvenile corrections facilities in the state. The commission was headquartered in the Brown-Heatly Building in Austin. As of 2007, it was the second largest juvenile corre ...

, aged 16–18 and with determinate sentences. Rodney Hulin, a 17-year-old prisoner, reported being

raped Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or agai ...

, harassed and assaulted by fellow inmates of his age group after his November 1995 transfer to a division for younger offenders in Clemens. Although he became a symbol of a movement that advocates keeping juvenile offenders housed separately from adults in prison institutions, his case was more complex, as he was attacked by prisoners his own age. Michael Berryhill, a journalist who wrote at length about this case, found that the prison was not yet organized to support its population. After being attacked and harassed, and failing to gain protection from prison officials, Hulin hanged himself. He was saved but had suffered severe brain damage and died four months later.

Operations

As of 2004 Clemens produces agricultural products such as edible and field crops and livestock. As of that year most of the inmates at Clemens, at all custody level, are second-time offenders.

Notable Inmates

* David Brooks (Accomplice of

Dean Corll Dean Arnold Corll (December 24, 1939 – August 8, 1973) was an American serial killer and pederast who abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered a minimum of 28 teenage boys and young men between 1970 and 1973 in Houston and Pasadena, Texas. He ...

) * Rodney Hulin *Dylan Maycroft

Cemeteries

The prison has two historic cemeteries. One, a cemetery of offenders who died from a virus epidemic, is located near the unit dog kennels. The second cemetery, in the Two Camp area on the Huntington Estate, has the graves of Thomas and Thompson McNeil.

References

External links

Clemens Unit
{{TDCJ-CID prisons Prisons in Brazoria County, Texas 1893 establishments in Texas Buildings and structures in Brazoria County, Texas