page_title: Texas Department of Criminal Justice
section_title: Incarceration of women
hierarchical_section_title: Texas Department of Criminal Justice / Major divisions / Recreation and Fitness / Incarceration of women
caption_attribution_description: English: Christina Crain Unit Español: Unidad Christina Crain
context_page_description: The Texas Department of Criminal Justice 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, and private correctional facilities, funding and certain oversight of community supervision, and supervision of offenders released from prison on parole or mandatory supervision. The TDCJ operates the largest prison system in the United States.
  The department has its headquarters in the BOT Complex in Huntsville and offices at the Price Daniel Sr. Building in downtown Austin.
context_section_description: The Correctional Institutions Division has eight main facilities, including five prisons and three state jails, that house women; Five of the women's units, including four prisons and one state jail, are in the City of Gatesville. Jorge Renaud, author of Behind the Walls: A Guide for Family and Friends of Texas Inmates, said that female prisoners in the TDCJ generally "undergo the same tribulations, are affected by the same policies, must adhere to the same regulations, and are treated the same by TDCJ staff."
  Originally, women were housed in the Huntsville Unit. Beginning in 1883, women were housed in the Johnson Farm, a privately owned cotton plantation near Huntsville. After Governor Thomas Mitchell Campbell took office in January 1907, he moved the women from Johnson to the Eastham Farm (now Eastham Unit) to try to protect women from predatory prison guards.
  For a period in the early 20th century, Eastham housed women before a sexual abuse scandal caused the Texas prison system to move women closer to Huntsville. Before the prisons in Gatesville opened in the 1980s, women in the Texas prison system were housed in the Goree Unit in Huntsville.
  In 2010, a study from the National Women's Law Center and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights ranked the Texas prison system as giving "B+" care to women. A 2018 report by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition stated that women in the TDCJ have fewer career-training and employment programs available than men; women had only two certification programs, while men had 21.
  In 2019, the Texas Senate passed a bill, allowing inmates to have access to a greater variety of feminine hygiene products. They have access to various sized tampons and pads and can receive up to 10 free products per day.
caption: The Christina Crain Unit in Gatesville is the largest TDCJ unit housing women.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "CAMERA", "Image Model": "5MP-9Q3", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:06:22 00:59:34", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "248", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "774", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5907", "EXIF ExposureTime": "637/200000", "EXIF FNumber": "6", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:05:14 05:01:31", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:05:14 05:01:31", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "307/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "13/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "190", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "151", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}