Huntsville Unit

Huntsville Unit is a prison located on 815 12th Street in Huntsville, Texas, United States.

The facility is operated by the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, administered as within [http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/unitdirectory/reg1.htm Region I] .

Huntsville Unit is the oldest prison in the state of Texas and houses the death chamber. Texas has the largest prison system in the United States. [cite web
author=
year=2001
month=September 10
url=http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2001/sep/huntsville/010910.huntsville.html
title=Huntsville Prison Blues
publisher=PBS.org
accessdate=2007-12-08]

Unlike other facilities in other states, death row is not located here. Death row (males only) was located here from 1928 to 1965, when they were moved to the nearby Ellis Unit. Escapes from the Ellis Unit led the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to relocate death row in 1999 to the Polunsky Unit, where it currently remains. The female death row is located at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville.

The Huntsville Unit is also known as the 'Walls Unit' for its large brick walls around the prison.fact|date=May 2008 The prison itself serves as a pre-release facility that all persons incarcerated must go to before they are released.

Death Penalty

Between 1819 and 1923 the method of execution was hanging until Texas authorized the use of the electric chair. The chair - [http://www.txprisonmuseum.org/ Old Sparky] was constructed by inmates. Between 1924 and 1964, 362 inmates were executed by electrocution. [cite web
author=
year=
month=
url=http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/TXHUNprison.html
title=Texas Prison Museum: Home of Old Sparky
publisher=RoadsideAmerica.com
accessdate=2007-12-08] The chair now resides at the Texas Prison Museum, located on Interstate 45 on the north side of Huntsville which features displays of historical items from the prison system, including shanks and other items confiscated from inmates.

Cultural references

There is a song on Merle Haggard's 1971 album, "Someday We'll Look Back," called "Huntsville," which references being sent to Huntsville Prison.

The 2008 album "Choices" by the country group Hazzard includes the song, "Christmas in Huntsville," which tells the story of an inmate on death row awaiting execution on Christmas for a murder he did not commit. [http://www.hazzardweb.com]

Fred Carrasco's 1974 Huntsville Prison Siege was one of the longest hostage sieges in American history. The eleven-day hostage crisis ended with a fatal shootout.

Duane 'DOG' Chapman Served 18 months in Huntsville prison for a murder he allegedly committed in 1977, There are a couple of chapters in his book "You Can Run But You Can't Hide" about being there.

Cross Canadian Ragweed has a song about the prison called "Walls of Huntsville" on their 2002 album Cross Canadian Ragweed.

See also

* List of Texas state prisons
*Trusty system

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/unitdirectory/hv.htm Huntsville Unit]
*
* [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/20046/tsl-20046.html Texas Prison Board: An Inventory of Records of the Texas Prison System at the Texas State Archive 1913-1933, 1943, undated]
* [http://www.txprisonmuseum.org/ Texas Prison Museum]
* [http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/TXHUNprison.html Texas Prison Museum - Huntsville - Home of Old Sparky]
* [http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/ Texas Department of Criminal Justice Website]
* [http://www.folkstreams.net/film,122 Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison]
* [http://www.48ovvi.org/oh48cf.html Life in a Texas Prison Pen - 1865]
* [http://www.aclutx.org/projects/prisons.php ACLU Texas Prison Program]