A brief look at the history of the Texas prison system

By Haley Jenkins

hrj8@txstate.edu

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History

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Three years after Texas was annexed to the United States, the 28th state to join the union began construction on its first penitentiary on August 5, 1848. A 4.5-acre plot of land in the east Texas town of Huntsville became home to The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, later nicknamed the “Walls” unit.

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In 1849, the prison received its first prisoner - William Sansom, convicted horse thief - while still under construction. Nearly eight years later, the Walls unit took in its first female prisoner - Rebecca Hoffman, convicted of infanticide - and by 1860, the prison population swelled to nearly 200 men and women.

 

What's happening today

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In the Texas prison system today, there are a total of 106 prison units and approximately 141,201 inmates as of September 2017. According to an article published by US News in response to the Feb. 1 riot at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna, the prison system today faces issues with severe overcrowding, a lack of proper regulations, unbalanced staff to prisoner ratio and inability to successfully deal with recidivism among many other things. And it only seems to be getting worse.

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Talking about it

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Despite the enormous impact prisons have on their surrounding culture, economy and society, they have received little to no progressive attention in the respect of their history, inner-workings and significant influence. As tensions and death tolls rise however, conversations about prisons have increased as well.

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Attorney for Students and co-creator of this year's Common Experience theme, “The Search for Justice: A Response to Crime in the 21st Century,” Shannon FitzPatrick led an advocacy workshop called “The Roots of Texas Prisons: From Slavery to Mass Incarcerations” as part of Texas State’s philosophy dialogue.

 

FitzPatrick modeled her dialogue after the book “Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison System” by Robert Perkinson, which explains and analyzes how Texas’ harsh prison system became the model for the nation.

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Among other resources, FitzPatrick also used a photo retrospective film produced by Deborah Esquenazi called “Wake Up, Dead Men,” which features striking pieces of prison photography from the 1960s.

 

“They don’t allow that (extensive prison photography) anymore,” FitzPatrick said. “They’ve learned that if people see too much of what’s going on... That’s not so good, so they limit the photography in the prison.”

 

While film directors and academics, such as Esquenazi and FitzPatrick, are doing their part to bring the darker side of prisons to light, there are also a number of resources made publicly available to anyone interested in doing their own research.

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Gathering the artifacts

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Justin Ball, a public history grad student and instructional assistant, made several trips to Huntsville, the Texas Prison and Gonzalez Jail Museum, and various units in the Texas prison system to collect research for his graduate project class.

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Ball gathered a number of historical and recent prison artifacts on loan from various prisons and museums, as well as a wealth of information and images regarding Texas prisons. His research will be displayed in a glass case on the first floor of the Alkek Library in early November.

 

One of Ball’s findings that will be temporarily displayed in the exhibition is a sponge (pictured below) which was used during electric executions in Texas prisons. To his surprise, Ball discovered that the sponge was used on all 361 individuals that underwent electrocution in Texas. The sponge was dipped in salt water before it was placed between the condemned prisoner’s head and the electrodes.

 

“Holding an object like that in your hand that’s been used to take that many lives is a powerful thing,” Ball said.

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Although efforts like Ball’s are being made to raise more awareness about prisons and their history, there is still a long way to go in terms of actual improvement, according to a CNN article.

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Making changes

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Criminal justice Professor Scott Bowman attributes many of the flaws in the Texas and U.S. prison system to a fundamental lack of knowledge.

 

“The average person has probably never toured a jail or prison,” Bowman said. “I think fundamental invisibility about the system makes people apathetic and indifferent.”

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Richard Morley, a senior lecturer and internship coordinator, believes that statistics have a large role to play in the possible reformation of the entire prison system.

 

“When it comes to human beings, it’s really the only way we can get answers,” Morley said. “Statistics give us a generalized understanding and a picture.”

 

Morley gave an example of one statistic regarding the prison system that has always stuck with him, the 100-to-1 Rule. This statistic came from the war on drugs during the Reagan Era in the 1980s and mandated a 10-year sentence for anyone caught with 50 grams of crack, yet to get a comparable sentence, a dealer selling powdered cocaine would have to be caught with 5,000 grams.

 

This sentencing disparity created a number of problems, specifically affecting the impoverished, minority communities that are most often found using the crack form of cocaine. Tougher penalties flooded federal courts with street-corner dealers and couriers, never managing to get to the source of the problem. Only in 2010 was this number reduced to 18-to-1 with Obama’s Fair Sentencing Act.

 

Instances like these prove that change is possible, given the right amount of scrutiny and motivation to improve.

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(Jail and prison pictures provided by Justin Ball)