KSAT Investigates takes you inside a Texas prison during a lockdown

HUNTSVILLE – For the first time in over a decade, Texas prisons were under a statewide lockdown from September 6th to October 16th.

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

As of Oct. 4, there have been 21 homicides at TDCJ prisons for the year 2023.

In 2022 and 2021, there were seven and nine homicides, respectively.

According to TDCJ’s website, a lockdown at each 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 includes comprehensive searches with K9 officers, and specialized search teams.

KSAT Investigates was granted exclusive access inside a prison while this lockdown was happening to see firsthand what the problems were. This is our day in Huntsville.

Arrival at the gates

Our visit with TDCJ officials at the Wynne Unit in Huntsville was scheduled for 8 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 18. Photographer Eddie Latigo and I left San Antonio on Sunday night for our nearly four-hour commute.

Huntsville is home to seven prisons, according to the Visit Huntsville website.

Bright and early Monday morning, we pulled up to the deep red walls of the Wynne Unit. It stood out against the greenery of the campus.

The Wynne Unit, established in 1883, is surrounded by barbed wire fencing and guard towers. It’s exactly how you’d picture a Texas prison to look.

The TDCJ website shows there are 480 total employees who work here: 323 security employees, 23 medical employees and three mental health employees.

The inmate population is strictly male, and the maximum capacity is 2,300, with an additional 321 at the trustee camp.

Our visit started just like any other visitor or employee — with a security screening.

Our cell phones and other devices were left in our vehicles as they were not allowed inside.

We walked through a metal detector and our belongings went on a conveyor belt to be screened. Staff members patted us down before we proceeded into the first gated area.

We showed ID to a camera to be verified by a guard who then buzzed our group onto the grounds to approach the prison.

We then went through a secondary screening by a K-9 officer and handler, who directed us to one side of a gate while the dog inspected us.

In the second gated area inside the unit, a guard checked identification again before buzzing us into the main entryway.

Wynne Unit mailroom

Roger Bowers is the senior warden at the Wynne Unit. He and a group of officials with TDCJ brought us into a room to brief us on what we’d see during our visit.

They explained it would give us an idea of the scope of problems they’re finding there and at prisons across the Lone Star State.

The first stop on our tour was a small building just off the side of the main building — the Wynne Unit Mailroom.

Margaret Thomas is the mailroom supervisor 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 said.

It’s been busy system-wide as more and more attempts are being made to bring drugs through the mail system, officials said.

On TDCJ’s social media, they show Bibles stuffed with meth, packages testing positive for fentanyl, and books positive for synthetic 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 said.

As a supervisor, Thomas carries Narcan on hand. They have a Narcan station by the mailroom door as well.

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

The Cafeteria

Our next stop was the cafeteria. The tables had boxes of sack lunches stored on top of them.

While the inmates stay in their cells on lockdown, meals are bagged and brought to them.

“2,600 offenders roughly. So we’re feeding (7,800) meals a day on this unit,” said Robert Williams, a major in the food service division.

This lockdown is making more work for his division because they don’t have the help of inmates in the kitchen, and the food has to be pre-packaged for delivery to the cell blocks.

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

When the lockdown was first initiated, it caught a lot of the staff here and at other prisons off guard. That was an intentional move made by 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,” said Bobby Lumpkin, director of the correctional institutions division.

Lumpkin said there were some complications in the early days of the lockdown they faced 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 said. “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 gym, where dozens of inmates were getting their belongings that they brought as their cells were searched.

All of their mattresses are also brought to be put through a specialized scanner to ensure no weapons 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 said.

Contraband can be anything from weapons to drugs to cell phones.

Bowers’ staff is going through every item the inmates bring with them to make sure it’s allowed, it’s theirs, and there’s nothing concealed inside of it.

Anything the inmates leave behind in their cells is considered 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 said.

To ensure nothing is hidden inside their body, inmates are taken through a strip search process and directed to sit on 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 were observing the search process in the gym, Jason Clark, the TDCJ chief of staff, allowed us to speak with several inmates if they wanted to share their experiences.

These inmates were not pointed out or made aware of our request to speak with them before our interviews. They agreed on the spot.

Courtland Wayne King has been incarcerated since 2012. He’s serving a sentence of life without parole.

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

King showed us a tablet he uses to play games, read, exercise, and send messages to his loved ones in the free world.

During a lockdown, in-person visitation is suspended. However, inmates can still communicate virtually.

“I got eight grandkids,” King said, showing us pictures of his grandkids on his tablet.

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

“Charm,” King said with a proud smile.

In another row, Colt Gaulding waited for the search of his belongings.

Gaulding said he gets why they’re under lockdown. Drugs are at an all-time high.

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

Cellblock search

Next, we walked down to one of the cell blocks currently being searched by one of the intelligence teams.

Two dogs were assisting in the search process, going ahead of and behind their human counterparts.

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

This particular cellblock was three stories high. Only the first floor was cleared out while we were there. The second floor of inmates were waiting for their turn to have their cells searched while they went to the gym.

Intelligence Sgt. Dominic Yanez and his team exhaustively search in every crevice of the cells, turning things completely over to find any hidden contraband.

“A lot of times, they’ll make false walls,” Yanez explained while demonstrating with his hands how they bang along the walls.

While we were there with the search team, they found a broken-off razor blade, as well as multiple pieces of fabric tied together to throw things from one cell to another.

After 20 years with TDCJ, Yanez says he knows what to look for and where to find it.

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

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