The J. Dale Wainwright Unit 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) prison for men, located 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 ...

Houston County,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

.Eastham Unit
."

. Retrieved on July 16, 2010. Formerly called the Eastham Unit or "The Ham," the prison was renamed the J. Dale Wainwright Unit after a former chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. The prison is located on Farm to Market Road 230,Perkinson, Robert.'' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in New York City. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt. Currently, the company publishes in the fields ...

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. near Lovelady and west of

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...

. the Wainwright Unit is up the Trinity River from the

Polunsky Unit Allan B. Polunsky Unit (TL, formerly the Terrell Unit) is a prison in West Livingston, unincorporated Polk County, Texas, United States, located approximately southwest of Livingston along Farm to Market Road 350. - Note the 2010 U.S. Cen ...

in West Livingston, and it is about one-third of the distance between Polunsky and the Christina Crain Unit (formerly Gatesville Unit) in Gatesville. Robert Perkinson, author of '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire'', said that while the TDCJ and other agencies operate many types of prisons and jails in Texas, "if any unit stands for the rest," it would be Eastham.Perkinson, Robert. '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

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. In 1972 prisoners at Eastham filed

Ruiz v. Estelle ''Ruiz v. Estelle'', 503 F. Supp. 1265 (S.D. Tex. 1980), filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, eventually became the most far-reaching lawsuit on the conditions of prison incarceration in American history. It ...

, a class action law suit against the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC), as the TDCJ was then known, and won. In 1979 the court found conditions of imprisonment within the TDC prison system constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the United States Constitution. While there were many names included in the lawsuit, David Ruiz was the first name listed and that is how the case was titled.

History

Before the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

, the land now making up Eastham was cleared by slaves. After the civil war, sharecroppers originally worked the land. The sharecroppers were replaced by prisoners under a

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 ...

program. In 1896, Mrs. D. Eastham agreed to pay $14.50 per month per person for 119 convicted men, including many African-Americans. The Eastham Unit opened in April 1917, becoming the first maximum security prison in Texas. It was named after the Eastham Family, the original owners of the land occupied by the prison. Throughout Eastham's history, many prisoners dreaded being sent to Eastham because of the arduous work assignments, the dangerous conditions, and the difficulty of escaping the unit. Many crackdowns and work strikes occurred during the unit's history. Throughout its history Eastham housed maximum security male prisoners and made them work in the fields. In the early twentieth century Eastham housed female prisoners. After a sexual abuse scandal occurred, the Texas Prison System administrators moved the women to be closer to

Huntsville Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in th ...

, and Eastham began housing men. It was during this period, from April 1930 to May 1932, that

Clyde Barrow Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut (Champion) Barrow (March 24, 1909May 23, 1934) were an American criminal couple who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. The co ...

, later ringleader of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde criminal gang, spent his first ever period of incarceration for burglary and auto theft. Eastham was the starting point of the

Texas Prison Rodeo The Texas Prison Rodeo was a rodeo and an annual celebration event for inmates in the Texas Prison System, held in a stadium in Huntsville, Texas. which began in 1931. On January 16, 1934,

freed five prisoners from the unit. At a later point Eastham specialized in housing young offenders; at first the young offenders were White, but after the facilities aged the state sent Black young offenders to Eastham. In 1935 Eastham housed White prisoners. In 1963, before racial desegregation occurred, the facility housed White prisoners who were classified as mostly maximum security inmates. The prison acted as an incubator for the ''

'' court case. On March 29, 1966 two inmates, Ronnie Lee Barlow, 20, serving a life sentence for murder from San Saba County, and Gerald Doudlag Lackey, 20, serving six years for burglary from Lubbock County escaped during the night after hiding under brush that had been cut that day. They severely beat a Houston County dairy farmer and his son stealing guns and an automobile to further their escape. The injured farmer recovered from head wounds in Crockett Medical and Surgical Clinic. His elder son was sent to Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas where he was treated for severe head injuries caused by blows to the head with a hatchet and a length of pipe. Highway Patrolman Paul Bruno, who was stationed in Huntsville captured two escaped inmates of the Eastham Unit TDC as they were entering I-45 heading to Dallas. untsville Item March 30, 1966 As an outbreak of stabbings occurred, an October 1986 ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'' magazine had a cover story on Eastham with title "America's Toughest Prison. In 1984 several prisoners short-circuited the locks on their cells and held a guard hostage. The crisis ended when prison guards attacked the cell block. In October 2000 David Stacks became the warden of Eastham; he introduced several voluntary rehabilitation programs to the unit.Rehabilitation programs rid Eastham of rugged reputation
."

. July–August 2006. Retrieved on November 28, 2010. Robert Perkinson, author of '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire'', said by 2010 Eastham's reputation had mellowed mainly because of the opening of newer units with more stringent rules, such as the

.Perkinson, Robert. '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

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. The TDCJ stated in 2006 that Stacks's programs "helped rid Eastham of its once rugged reputation." As of 2010, the prison's agricultural operation, described by Perkinson as "massive," has 4,000 head of free-range cattle, 52,000 laying hens, 5,000 hogs, and of field crops. The operation is maintained with 11 paid employees and prisoner labor.Perkinson, Robert. '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

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. In 2011 the Jester III Unit garment plant closed. Its operations were consolidated with the plant at Eastham.

Operations

Perkinson wrote that while the TDCJ and other agencies operate many types of prisons and jails in Texas, "if any unit stands for the rest," it would be Eastham. Perkinson added that Eastham "typifies the rural isolation of most Texas lockups" and "binds present-day prisons to their unburied past." Eastham, a cotton plantation, houses all prisoner classification types but has an emphasis on maximum security incarceration. The prison had many forms and purposes during its lifetime, and ruins, such as a cell block and a former textile mill, are on the prison grounds. Throughout its history, the institution's goals were to profit from annual cotton harvests and to discipline prisoners who did not work sufficiently to produce the harvests. Walter Siros, a man who was sent to Eastham in 1960, described the institutional rule as "murderous." Perkinson said that Eastham's "continuities were striking" and that the prison's daily rhythms, which originated from the 19th century, "scarcely changed." Perkinson said that Eastham's history suggests that the harshest elements of imprisonment in 2010 had origins in previous eras, and that Eastham stymies contemporary criminal justice analysts who focus on recent trends instead of continuities.Perkinson, Robert. '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

, 2010. p
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p
45
.

Composition

The main prison building, a red-brick structure, was constructed by inmate labor. The building has a "telephone pole" layout with central pickets with dead-end cell blocks extending from them; the layout is very difficult to patrol and control, so historically the prison management used "building tenders," who were prisoners charged with watching the areas of Eastham. Eastham has employee housing.Perkinson, Robert. '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

, 2010. p
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. The children of the employees living on the prison property attend the Lovelady Independent School District.

Demographics

As of 2010, most of the prisoners at Eastham are

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

s and

Chicano Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

s who originate from urban areas in Texas. For many of them, their assignments to Eastham are the first times that they have ever been on a farm property.

Notable inmates

* Roy Renick, perpetrator of the

murders of John Goosey and Stacy Barnett The murders of John Forest "Johnny" Goosey and Stacy Marie BarnettBrick, Michael.Closing of murder case involving UT grads opens window into shadowy business of marijuana dealingArchive. ''The Dallas Morning News''. September 26, 2010. Retrieved ...

.Renick, Roy

Archive
.

. Retrieved on February 17, 2013. * David Ruíz (plaintiff of

)Perkinson, Robert. '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

, 2010. p
255
. * Ruy Enrique Perez - Molested teenage boy Jules Llamas * Keith Robert Turner - perpetrator of the 2006 Harris County, Texas hate crime assaultTurner, Keith Robert

Archive
.

. Retrieved on December 28, 2015.

References

Bibliography

*Guinn, Jeff. ''Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde''. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.) .

External links

*
Eastham Unit
"

. * Jackson, Kathy.
MINISTRY TO A NO-MAN'S LAND Inmates at `toughest prison' respond to a message of love
" ''

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the '' Galvest ...

''. November 30, 1986. {{Women's prisons in the United States Buildings and structures in Houston County, Texas Prisons in Texas Women's prisons in Texas 1917 establishments in Texas