Investigates takes you inside a Texas prison during a lockdown

HUNTSVILLE – For the primary time in over a decade, Texas prisons had been underneath a statewide lockdown from September sixth to October sixteenth.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) says the amount of violence, medicine, and contraband inside prisons is at an all-time top.

As of Oct. 4, there were 21 homicides at TDCJ prisons for the yr 2023.

In 2022 and 2021, there have been seven and 9 homicides, respectively.

According to TDCJ’s web site, a lockdown at every facility “will limit the movement of inmates and their contact with those outside the prison. Inmates and staff will undergo intensified searches to intercept and confiscate contraband.” The lockdown contains complete searches with K9 officials, and specialised seek groups.

Investigates used to be granted unique get entry to inside a prison whilst this lockdown used to be going down to look firsthand what the issues had been. This is our day in Huntsville.

Arrival on the gates

Our consult with with TDCJ officers on the Wynne Unit in Huntsville used to be scheduled for 8 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 18. Photographer Eddie Latigo and I left San Antonio on Sunday night time for our just about four-hour travel.

Huntsville is house to seven prisons, in step with the Visit Huntsville website.

Bright and early Monday morning, we pulled as much as the deep crimson partitions of the Wynne Unit. It stood out in opposition to the greenery of the campus.

The Wynne Unit, established in 1883, is surrounded through barbed cord fencing and guard towers. It’s precisely how you’d image a Texas prison to appear.

The TDCJ web site presentations there are 480 overall staff who paintings right here: 323 safety staff, 23 clinical staff and 3 psychological well being staff.

The inmate inhabitants is exactly male, and the utmost capability is two,300, with an extra 321 on the trustee camp.

Our consult with began similar to another customer or worker — with a safety screening.

Our cellphones and different gadgets had been left in our cars as they weren’t allowed inside.

We walked thru a steel detector and our property went on a conveyor belt to be screened. Staff participants patted us down ahead of we proceeded into the primary gated house.

We confirmed ID to a digital camera to be verified through a guard who then buzzed our workforce onto the grounds to method the prison.

We then went thru a secondary screening through a Okay-9 officer and handler, who directed us to at least one facet of a gate whilst the canine inspected us.

In the second one gated house inside the unit, a guard checked id once more ahead of humming us into the primary entryway.

Wynne Unit mailroom

Roger Bowers is the senior warden on the Wynne Unit. He and a workforce of officers with TDCJ introduced us into a room to temporary us on what we’d see during our consult with.

They defined it will give us an concept of the scope of issues they’re discovering there and at prisons around the Lone Star State.

The first prevent on our excursion used to be a small construction simply off the facet of the primary construction — the Wynne Unit Mailroom.

Margaret Thomas is the mailroom manager at Wynne.

“We process all that incoming mail that comes in. We search if we do search for contraband. Different smells, different textures, different coloring on the paper,” Thomas stated.

It’s been busy system-wide as increasingly more makes an attempt are being made to carry medicine throughout the mail method, officers stated.

On TDCJ’s social media, they display Bibles full of meth, applications checking out certain for fentanyl, and books certain for artificial marijuana or K2.

“They’re going to try to get it in through the legal mail, which we’re more on alert on that,” Thomas stated.

As a manager, Thomas carries Narcan readily available. They have a Narcan station through the mailroom door as smartly.

“If anybody gets exposed to [fentanyl], and we see them acting funny or feeling crazy, then we squirt this in their nose,” she stated.

The Cafeteria

Our subsequent prevent used to be the cafeteria. The tables had packing containers of sack lunches saved on best of them.

While the inmates keep of their cells on lockdown, foods are bagged and dropped at them.

“2,600 offenders roughly. So we’re feeding (7,800) meals a day on this unit,” stated Robert Williams, a main within the meals carrier department.

This lockdown is making extra paintings for his department as a result of they don’t have the assistance of inmates within the kitchen, and the meals must be pre-packaged for supply to the mobile blocks.

“It’s a lot of more prep work. It’s a lot more fluid going out,” Williams stated.

When the lockdown used to be first initiated, it stuck a lot of the body of workers right here and at different prisons off guard. That used to be an intentional transfer made through TDCJ.

“It’s only communicated at a certain level. And then, when it is announced statewide, all movement stops. With that, some things that happen day-to-day do not stop — the feeding of the population,” stated Bobby Lumpkin, director of the correctional establishments department.

Lumpkin stated there have been some headaches within the early days of the lockdown they confronted when feeding the inmates.

“On the first day, we did have some hiccups, and we did have some delays in getting the meals put out to the population. Since then, we have ensured that our monitoring has increased,” Lumpkin stated. “Ensure that our food service departments are being — one, not only meet the requirements of the calorie intake but being innovative in the types of meals and being able to do a hot meal in the delivery system.”

The Gym

Warden Bowers then took us to the gymnasium, the place dozens of inmates had been getting their property that they introduced as their cells had been searched.

All in their mattresses also are dropped at be put thru a specialised scanner to make sure no guns are hidden inside.

“We’re trying to process the lockdown as strategically and as safe as we can to make sure that we rid any contraband on the facility so we can return the facility back to normal,” Bowers stated.

Contraband can also be the rest from guns to medicine to cellphones.

Bowers’ body of workers goes thru each merchandise the inmates carry with them to ensure it’s allowed, it’s theirs, and there’s not anything hid inside of it.

Anything the inmates depart at the back of of their cells is regarded as trash or discarded.

“Unfortunately, some of these guys move contraband from one area to another, so we’ll take them through a strip search process,” Bowers stated.

To be certain that not anything is hidden inside their frame, inmates are taken thru a strip seek procedure and directed to sit down at the BOSS chair. BOSS is an acronym for Body Orifice Security Scanner.

According to the Security Pro USA website, the BOSS chairs are “designed as a safe, non-intrusive method of detecting objects concealed in body cavities. It is commonly used in corrections facilities to scan inmates for weapons and contraband objects hidden in all body cavities.”

‘Lockdown is lockdown’

While we had been looking at the quest procedure within the gymnasium, Jason Clark, the TDCJ leader of body of workers, allowed us to talk with a number of inmates in the event that they sought after to percentage their stories.

These inmates weren’t identified or made conscious about our request to talk with them ahead of our interviews. They agreed at the spot.

Courtland Wayne King has been incarcerated since 2012. He’s serving a sentence of existence with out parole.

“Lockdown is pretty good. It’s running fairly like it’s supposed to. Lockdown is lockdown,” King stated.

King confirmed us a pill he makes use of to play video games, learn, workout, and ship messages to his family members within the unfastened global.

During a lockdown, in-person visitation is suspended. However, inmates can nonetheless keep up a correspondence nearly.

“I got eight grandkids,” King stated, appearing us photos of his grandkids on his pill.

“Eight grandkids! What’s her name?” reporter Leigh Waldman requested.

“Charm,” King stated with a proud smile.

In every other row, Colt Gaulding waited for the quest of his property.

Gaulding stated he will get why they’re underneath lockdown. Drugs are at an all-time top.

“It is going to be a better place when they get contraband off of the unit,” Gaulding stated.

Cellblock seek

Next, we walked all the way down to one of the crucial mobile blocks recently being searched through one of the crucial intelligence groups.

Two canine had been aiding within the seek procedure, going forward of and at the back of their human opposite numbers.

“Overall, we have around 121 narcotic dogs, and some of those are puppies still being trained narcotic dogs across the state,” Lumpkin stated.

This specific cellblock used to be 3 tales top. Only the primary flooring used to be cleared out whilst we had been there. The 2nd flooring of inmates had been looking ahead to their flip to have their cells searched whilst they went to the gymnasium.

Intelligence Sgt. Dominic Yanez and his crew exhaustively seek in each crevice of the cells, turning issues utterly over to search out any hidden contraband.

“A lot of times, they’ll make false walls,” Yanez defined whilst demonstrating together with his fingers how they bang alongside the partitions.

While we had been there with the quest crew, they discovered a broken-off razor blade, in addition to a couple of items of material tied in combination to throw issues from one mobile to every other.

After twenty years with TDCJ, Yanez says he is aware of what to search for and the place to search out it.

“The biggest difference is the type of contraband that we’re finding and also the amount,” he stated.

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