The Gatesville State School for Boys was a juvenile corrections facility in Gatesville,

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 ...

. The facility was converted into two prisons for adults, the Christina Crain Unit (formerly Gatesville Unit), and the Hilltop Unit.Hilltop warden, employees work to restore facility’s former glory
." ''

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 ...

''. September–October 2005. Retrieved on July 24, 2010.Gatesville State School for Boys
" '' Handbook of Texas''. Retrieved on July 23, 2010.

History

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 ar ...

established the House of Correction and Reformatory, the first rehabilitative juvenile correctional facility in the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, in 1887. The facility, operated by the

Texas Prison System 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, ...

, opened in January 1889 with 68 boys who had previously been located in correctional facilities with adult felons. The Victorian reformers who opened the facility intended for the farmwork in the dry climate and the schooling to reform juvenile delinquents.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 ...

, 2010. p
35
. At the beginning the institution also housed boys who did not commit any crimes but had no family and no other place to live in. Children were previously housed in the

Huntsville Unit Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville or Huntsville Unit (HV), nicknamed "Walls Unit", is a Texas state prison located in Huntsville, Texas, United States. The approximately facility, near downtown Huntsville, is operated by the Correctional Ins ...

, a prison which also housed adults, in Huntsville.Perkinson, Robert. '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

, 2010. p
92
. "At the Walls, the first Unionist managers talked of importing northern-style penitential idealism. They prohibited whipping and proposed erecting a hospital, chapel and separate barracks for women and boys." Robert Perkinson, author of '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire'', said that the institution gained "a reputation for ruthlessness" as decades passed. Gatesville, which served as the main juvenile detention facility for Texas since its opening, had a focus on labor instead of rehabilitation. Throughout the state school's history the state government did not appropriate sufficient funds, and the dormitories became overcrowded. Before the state school first opened, the reformatory officials complained about an influx of non-White children who they believed were not capable of being rehabilitated.Perkinson, Robert. '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

, 2010. p
253
. Michael Jewell, a former Gatesville state school student who attended the school in 1961, said that long periods in solitary confinement, stoop labor, fights between gangs, beatings perpetrated by staff members, and sexual assault occurred at the facility. Perkinson said that Gatesville, intended to resemble the

Elmira Correctional Facility Elmira Correctional Facility, also known as "The Hill," is a maximum security state prison located in Chemung County, New York, in the City of Elmira. It is operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. The ...

in Elmira, New York, instead had an attitude similar to that of the Texas

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 ...

s for adults. In 1909 the legislature changed the facility's name to the State Institution for the Training of Juveniles and placed it under the control of a five member board of trustees. In 1913 a law that was passed renamed the facility to the State Juvenile Training School. The 1913 Juvenile Act stated that White boys at Gatesville would be separated from boys of other races. In 1913 the school opened the "Negroes' Institute," facilities for Black boys. In 1919 the newly established State Board of Control began managing the state school. In 1939 the legislature named the juvenile correctional facility the Gatesville State School for Boys. In 1940 the Gatesville State School housed 767 boys who were under 17 at the time the state ordered them to attend the state school. At the time the boys conducted activities on a tract of state-owned land and a tract of leased land. In 1949 the State Youth Development Council began to operate the Gatesville State School. In 1950 the state school had 406 boys. In 1957 the Texas Youth Council, now 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 ...

, was established, replacing its predecessor agency. The Mountain View School for Boys opened on September 5, 1962, and chronic and serious juvenile delinquents were moved to Mountain View.Mountain View School for Boys
" Handbook of Texas. Retrieved on July 23, 2010. By 1970, the state school, with 1,830 boys, consisted of seven sub-schools: Hackberry, Hilltop, Live Oak, Riverside, Sycmore, Terrace, and Valley. Gatesville also housed the reception center for boys entering TYC. In 1971 a class-action lawsuit was filed against the Texas Youth Council on behalf of the children in TYC facilities. In 1974 the school had 1,500 boys over 250 staff members. During that year, federal judge

William Wayne Justice William Wayne Justice (February 25, 1920 – October 13, 2009) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Education and career Born in Athens, Texas, Justice received a Bachelor of ...

ruled on ''

Morales v. Turman Morales is a Spanish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Alfredo Morales (born 1990), American footballer * Alvaro Morales (disambiguation), several people * Amado Morales (born 1947), Puerto Rican javelin thrower * Bartolomé M ...

''. Justice said that the operations of the state schools consisted of cruel and unusual practices that violated the

Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution protects against imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. This amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the ...

. Justice ordered TYC to close the Gatesville State School and the Mountain View State School and to redesign the agency's juvenile corrections system. Gatesville State School closed in 1979. The boys moved to smaller state schools, foster and group homes, halfway houses, and residential treatment centers. The state schools taking juvenile offenders included Brownwood State School (now Ron Jackson), Crockett State School in Crockett,

Gainesville State School The Gainesville State School is a juvenile correctional facility of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department in unincorporated Cooke County, Texas, near Gainesville. The fenced, maximum security state school is located on a tract east of Gainesvill ...

near Gainesville,

Giddings State School Giddings State School is a juvenile correctional facility of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department located in unincorporated Lee County, Texas, near Giddings.Giddings Giddings may refer to: * Giddings (surname) *Giddings, Texas Giddings is the county seat of Lee County, Texas, United States situated on the intersection of U.S. Highway 77 and U.S. Route 290. Its population was 4,969 at the 2020 census. The ci ...

, and West Texas Children's Home of Pyote near Pyote. The Texas Department of Corrections purchased the former state school lands. In 1980 the Live Oak, Riverside, Sycamore, Terrace, and Valley schools became the Gatesville Unit (now the Christina Melton Crain Unit), and the Hilltop and Hackberry schools became the Hilltop Unit, both of which are women's prisons.

Education

In 1915 the Texas State Board of Education certified the state school as an independent school district, allowing it to get funding for school supplies and teacher salaries.

Student culture

The school newspaper, ''State Boys'', started in 1914. William S. Bush, author of '' Who Gets a Childhood?: Race and Juvenile Justice in Twentieth-Century Texas'', said that the school newspaper's main purpose was to serve as a pro-prison administration propaganda organ.Bush 17.

Legacy

The Hilltop Unit still uses many buildings that were a part of the original House of Correction and Reformatory. A graveyard with sixteen graves containing the remains of children in the state school who died during their stay is located on the Riverside Unit.

Notable residents

* David Resendez Ruíz (plaintiff of '' Ruiz v. Estelle'') - First arrived in 1954, had four sessions in GatesvillePerkinson, Robert. '' Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. First Edition.

, 2010. p
254
.

Works cited

* Bush, William S. '' Who Gets a Childhood?: Race and Juvenile Justice in Twentieth-Century Texas''

University of Georgia Press The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is the university press of the University of Georgia, a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. It is the oldest and largest publishing house in Georgia and a ...

, 2010. , .

References

External links

*
Texas House of Correction and Reformatory: An Inventory of Reports at the Texas State Archives, 1890-1892
"

Texas State Library and Archives Commission The Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) refers to the agency in the state of Texas that assists the people of Texas to effectively use information, archival resources, public records and library materials to improve their lives, th ...

. {{coord, 31, 28, 07, N, 97, 44, 19, W, scale:10000, display=title 1889 establishments in Texas Educational institutions established in 1889 Prisons in Gatesville, Texas Juvenile detention centers in Texas 1979 disestablishments in Texas