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23-752: The Gatesville Unit, formed on portions of the former Gatesville State School , opened in August 1980. The portions of Gatesville State School that became the Crain Unit include the Live Oak, Riverside, Sycamore, Terrace, and Valley schools, while the Hackberry and Hilltop units of the former state school became the Hilltop Unit . The Gatesville Unit was named after the City of Gatesville. From its opening until several years before 2010,

46-475: 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. 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

69-540: A constant underlying internal tension existed at Crain. As of 2008 the prison had about 2,000 inmates, about 540 correctional officers, and about 210 other employees. Robert Perkinson, author of Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire , said that the Crain Unit has a "rich assortment of programming" compared to most Texas prisons. The unit includes a female boot camp and a Substance Abuse Felony Punishment (SAFP) facility. Current: Former: Gatesville State School The Gatesville State School for Boys

92-500: Is the place where new female arrivals to the TDCJ are processed. In addition the center houses a boot camp program. The 174 bed Valley Unit houses pregnant, elderly, and developmentally delayed prisoners. As of 1993 72 beds are reserved for the mentally retarded. In addition Valley houses the prison library. Female prisoners throughout Texas who are not state jail prisoners or substance abuse felony punishment facility residents are released from

115-1006: The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution . 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 near Gainesville , Giddings State School near Giddings , and West Texas Children's Home of Pyote near Pyote . The Texas Department of Corrections purchased

138-583: The Hospital Galveston unit in Galveston , which is located five hours away from Gatesville by automobile. In 1993 Leah Karotkin of the Houston Press said "Anticipating my visit to Gatesville, I had expected more drama. Instead, I was struck by the simple endless monotony of the prison, disappointingly mundane rather than what I expected. More than hard-time punishment, alienation and loneliness seem to be

161-533: The Huntsville Unit , a prison which also housed adults, in Huntsville . 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

184-563: The Texas Prison System , 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. 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

207-834: The Crain Unit. Most women in Crain live in dormitories described by Leah Karotkin of the Houston Press as "drab" and "low-slung." Most inmates work seven hours per day. Jobs include painting and repairing buildings, maintaining and repairing large equipment such as boiler units, hoeing fields, and fixing potholes. Crain includes a trustee camp, which was one of the first to be built by the TDCJ . The camp, which has no perimeter fence, houses non-violent minimum custody inmates who need less supervision than regular inmates and who are less likely to escape than regular inmates. The trustees live in an open dormitory and work in prisoner and prison guard beauty shops, food service, landscaping, and transportation. Women in

230-493: 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 900-acre (360 ha) tract of state-owned land and a 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) tract of leased land. In 1949 the State Youth Development Council began to operate the Gatesville State School. In 1950

253-538: The Gatesville Unit was primarily a work farm, and staff members placed new prisoners in the fields to work. Due to reductions in staffing levels and new security mandates, the prison's agricultural operations were reduced. In 2008 the Texas Board of Criminal Justice unanimously voted to rename the Gatesville Unit after Christina Melton Crain, the first female chairperson of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. On that day

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276-556: The Terrace Unit campus "resembles a 1950s-era elementary school that has survived decades of budget cuts." It has three regular dorms and a cellblock building with small 2 person cells. Terrace Unit houses about 340 total inmates. It is a medical unit which holds many of Crain's elderly inmates. Air conditioning was installed in Spring 2018 in the regular dorms but not in cellblock. As of 1993 women who are about to give birth are transported to

299-666: The Valley Unit work as beauty operators, clerks, cooks, kitchen workers, and landscape gardeners. Crain has 20 beds available for the Sentence Alternative to Incarceration Program, a 90-day program for first time offenders between the ages of 17 and 25. The boot camp is housed in a former infirmary in the Reception Center. 32 isolation cells are reserved for difficult prisoners. Amy Smith of the Austin Chronicle wrote that

322-679: The facility. Perkinson said that Gatesville, intended to resemble the Elmira Correctional Facility in Elmira, New York , instead had an attitude similar to that of the Texas prison farms 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

345-724: 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. 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. The school newspaper, State Boys , started in 1914. William S. Bush, author of Who Gets

368-683: The goals, or at least the most obvious effects, of the institution. Still, it's clear, Gatesville is a pretty rough place to be." In 2010 Robert Perkinson, author of Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire , said that Crain was "not the hardest place to do time in Texas." Major Janice Wilson, who was the head prison guard in 1993, said during that year that many women in Crain gain close bonds with women who they sympathize or feel sorry for. Some women had been in romantic relationships where they received battery, and some had experienced several romantic relationships that, to them, were not good. According to Wilson these women become friends, and some of

391-550: The name change became effective immediately. Crain, a resident of the Preston Hollow area of Dallas , worked as a lawyer. She left the Texas Board of Criminal Justice in May 2008. The Christina Crain Unit houses all non-death row custody levels and is equipped to hold 2,014 prisoners. Crain consists of seven separate satellite units, each serving a distinct purpose. Crain's Reception Center

414-525: 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 ruled on Morales v. Turman . Justice said that the operations of the state schools consisted of cruel and unusual practices that violated

437-514: 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. 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

460-627: The state school had 406 boys. In 1957 the Texas Youth Council, now the Texas Youth Commission , 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. 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

483-676: The women engage in homosexual relationships. As of 1993 the institution forbids sexual conduct between two prisoners, and women can lose class time if they are caught. In several published reports that existed by 1993, prisoners said that the isolation is a factor in the sexual relationships that are formed at the unit. Wilson added that the aspect many women dislike the most about Crain is the lack of accessibility to their families and children. For many, visits occur infrequently and women do not often get to make telephone calls. Many relatives have very little money and do not have much time that they can use to visit their imprisoned relatives. Wilson said that

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506-650: Was a juvenile corrections facility in Gatesville , Texas . The 900-acre (360 ha) facility was converted into two prisons for adults, the Christina Crain Unit (formerly Gatesville Unit), and the Hilltop Unit . The Texas Legislature established the House of Correction and Reformatory, the first rehabilitative juvenile correctional facility in the Southern United States , in 1887. The facility, operated by

529-483: 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

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