The Memorial Unit (DA), known as the Darrington Unit until 2021, is a

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) men's prison located in

Brazoria County 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 statis ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, with a

Rosharon, Texas Rosharon ( ), is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) split between Brazoria County and Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, at the intersection of Farm to Market Road 521 and Farm to Market Road 1462. As of the 2010 ...

postal address;Darrington Unit
."

. Retrieved on May 9, 2010. it is not inside the Rosharon

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...

. Most of the unit is in an

unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

, while a portion is in the city limits of Sandy Point. The unit is along

Farm to Market Road 521 A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

, north of Rosharon, and about south of

Downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, Interstate 45, ...

. The prison has about of land. The prison has the Region III Administrative Office of the Windham School District.

History

The prison opened in 1917. It sits on land that was owned by the Mexican government until 1824. In the 1830s and 1840s, the land housed a plantation owned by John Darrington of Alabama. Slaves picked cotton and sugar cane there. Darrington did not live on the site, but the name Darrington Plantation stuck even after subsequent owners bought the land. The state of Texas kept the name of the plantation when they opened the prison, designating it the Darrington Unit. The song "

Wasn't That a Mighty Storm "Wasn't That a Mighty Storm" is an American folk song concerning the 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas. It was revived and popularized by Eric Von Schmidt and Tom Rush in the 1960s, and later by the bluegrass musician Tony Rice. Hi ...

" was first recorded by

John A. Lomax John Avery Lomax (September 23, 1867 – January 26, 1948) was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess ...

in 1934 at Darrington, sung by "Sin-Killer" Griffin who claimed authorship. In 1935 Darrington housed African American prisoners. In 1963, before racial desegregation occurred, the facility housed white second offenders. In the late 1980s, Darrington housed a lot of leaders of

prison gang A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system. It has a corporate entity and exists into perpetuity. Its membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Prison officials and ot ...

s. In 1986 and 1987 a high gunwalk was built, overseeing 13 recreation yards; the walk allows prison guards to easily shoot and kill raging prisoners. In 2017 a judge ordered the installation of air conditioning. In January 2021, State Representative James White, chair of the Texas House Committee on Corrections, asked the Texas Board of Criminal Justice to rename the Darrington Unit and two other Texas prisons because the names were associated with slavery or

convict leasing Convict leasing was a system of forced penal labor which was practiced historically in the Southern United States, the laborers being mainly African-American men; it was ended during the 20th century. (Convict labor in general continues; f ...

. White referred to John Darrington as a "plantation mega owner". Later in the year, TDCJ changed the name of the prison to the Memorial Unit in honor of the agency's deceased employees.

Operations

The

Texas Legislature The Texas Legislature is the state legislature of the US state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a powerful ...

designated portions of Angleton ISD that by September 1, 1995 had not been annexed by

Alvin Community College Alvin Community College (ACC) is a public community college in Alvin, Texas. Alvin Community College provides educational opportunities in workforce training, academics, technical fields, adult basic education, and personal development. As defi ...

as in the

Brazosport College Brazosport College (BC) is a public community college in Lake Jackson, Texas. The college was opened in 1968 and offers primarily associate degrees and some bachelor's degrees. The campus features The Clarion, a regional musical performance ven ...

zone. As Darrington Unit is not in the maps of Alvin CC, it is in the Brazosport College zone. There was a section of H.B. No. 2744, filed on March 6, 2007, which would have changed the boundary between Alvin CC and Brazosport CC to put the Darrington Unit in the Alvin CC service boundary.

Prisoner life

Education

In 2011, a campus of the

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is a Baptist theological institute in Fort Worth, Texas. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. It was established in 1908 and is one of the largest seminaries in the world. It i ...

was established in the prison. The school has significantly reduced the rate of violence in the prison.

Notable prisoners

* David Graham, perpetrator of the

murder of Adrianne Jones Diane Michelle Zamora (born January 21, 1978) is a former United States Naval Academy midshipman and convicted murderer who, in 1995, murdered Adrianne Jessica Jones, who she believed was a romantic rival for her ex-fiancé and accomplice, David G ...

Graham, David Christopher

Archive
.

. Retrieved on December 28, 2015. * Dennis Hope, whose breakout is dramatized in Season 1, Episode 3 of the

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas typic ...

series, ''Breakout''.

References

External links

Darrington Unit
"

. * Collier, Keith.
Southwestern holds convocation inside maximum security prison
" ''

''. September 2, 2011. {{TDCJ-CID prisons Prisons in Brazoria County, Texas 1917 establishments in Texas Buildings and structures in Brazoria County, Texas