The W. F. Ramsey Unit (previously Ramsey I 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

, with a Rosharon postal address; it is not inside the Rosharon

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), 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 count ...

. The prison is located on Farm to Market Road 655, west of

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 ...

,Ramsey Unit
"

. Retrieved on July 16, 2010. and 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 ...

. The unit is co-located with the Stringfellow Unit and the Terrell Unit.

History

The unit opened in July 1908. The Ramsey Prison Farm consisted of five former plantations.Convict Leasing and State Account Farming (1883-1909)
" Texas State Library and Archives. Retrieved on April 29, 2011. In 1935, Ramsey housed African American prisoners. In 1963, before racial desegregation took place, the Ramsey I Unit housed white prisoners. In 2011, the Central Unit closed. The former truck distribution center at Central moved to Ramsey.

Operations

The

University of Houston–Clear Lake The University of Houston–Clear Lake (UHCL) is a public university in Pasadena and Houston, Texas, with branch campuses in Pearland and Texas Medical Center. It is part of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1971, UHCL had ...

offers a master's degree program at Ramsey. Prisoners may pay the State of Texas after their release. 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 ...

designated portions of Angleton ISD that by September 1, 1995 had not been annexed by Alvin Community College as in the Brazosport College zone. As Ramsey 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 Ramsey Unit in the Alvin CC service boundary.

Notable inmates

Notable inmates of the Ramsey Unit include: Current (): * Shawn Allen Berry - Murderer of James Byrd, Jr.Keys, Perryn.
JASPER: THE ROAD BACK: Did prison time turn man into one of Byrd's killers?
''

Beaumont Enterprise ''The Beaumont Enterprise'' is a newspaper of Hearst Communications, headquartered in Beaumont, Texas. It has been in operation since 1880. In addition to BeaumontEnterprise.com and the daily newspaper, ''The Enterprise'' produces several weeklie ...

''. June 9, 2008. Retrieved on July 23, 2010. * David Owen Brooks - perpetrator of the Houston Mass Murders * Carlos Coy (

South Park Mexican Carlos Coy (born October 5, 1970), known professionally as SPM (an initialism for South Park Mexican), is an American rapper, songwriter, founder of Dope House Records, and convicted sex offender. His stage name is derived from the South Park ...

)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. 254. . * David Henry Tuck - perpetrator of the 2006 Harris County, Texas hate crime assault * Roy Oliver - Murderer of Jordan Edwards *

Eddie Ray Routh Eddie or Eddy may refer to: Science and technology *Eddy (fluid dynamics), the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fluid flows past an obstacle *Eddie (text editor), a text editor originally for BeOS and now ported to Linu ...

- serving life without parole for the murders of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. * Feanyichi Ezekwesi Uvukansi - Perpetrator of 2012 shooting outside a southwest Houston nightclub that left three people dead and rapper

Trae tha Truth Frazier Othel Thompson III (born July 3, 1980), better known by his stage name Trae tha Truth (or simply Trae), is an American rapper and record executive from Houston, Texas. Embarking on a musical career in 1998, he soon established himself ...

injured. Former: * David Ruíz, plaintiff of '' Ruiz v. Estelle'', served time at the historic Ramsey Farm. * Michael Morton - Exonerated of the crime which he was convicted of. He had requested a transfer to Ramsey so he could complete a master's degree program there.

References

External links

*
Ramsey Unit
"

.
Map of Ramsey Unit: Texas Tribune
{{TDCJ-CID prisons Prisons in Brazoria County, Texas Buildings and structures in Brazoria County, Texas 1908 establishments in Texas