HUNTSVILLE. Texas – Prisons in Texas are back to normal operations as of October 16th after a statewide lockdown was initiated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on September 6th.
Extensive searches found 584 cellphones, 587 weapons, 564 “dangerous items” and hundreds of drugs and drug-related items.
“We’re going to be thorough. We’re going to make sure that the facilities are safe and that we rid the facility as much contraband as we can,” said Roger Bowers, the warden of the Wynne Unit in Huntsville, when showing us the gym where inmates and their belongings were being searched.
Outside of this lockdown, prisons have regular search protocols in place.
“We do have a policy in place where we do two semiannual comprehensive shakedowns a year in which we go through the facility to check for contraband. And it generally takes about two to three weeks to do that,” Bowers said.
What prompted the statewide lockdown
Over the past five years, there’s been a significant increase in the amount of contraband found inside prisons in Texas, things like cell phones, alcohol, drugs, and weapons.
“All of our facilities go through some type of shake-down procedure each year, but to take a whole system down at once had not been done since 2008,” said Bobby Lumpkin, director of correctional institutions divisions for TDCJ.
The 2008 lockdown was put in place by then-governor Rick Perry.
“We had an incident where a death row inmate had a contraband cellphone and placed a call to a state senator at that time. That was very concerning,” Lumpkin explained.
Lumpkin said a lockdown of this magnitude is a major disruption for day-to-day life inside the prisons.
“It is very concerning. We’ve also had some serious assaults, some assaults of staff also, inmate homicides,” Lumpkin said.
Homicide numbers
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.
For comparison’s sake, KSAT Investigates filed open records requests with the California Correctional Health Care Services, which provided data regarding their homicide numbers.
As of Sept. 22, 2023, there had been 11 homicides within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. For 2021 and 2022, there were 15 and 25 homicides each year, respectively.
Texas has the largest prison population in the U.S. with 133,000, while California has the second-most at just over 100,000.
‘He paid his dues. He shouldn’t have to die’
“He just wanted to come home, and he wanted to venture in agriculture, and he wanted to help people get in shape,” said LaShara Lampkin, whose 22-year-old son Braylon Holley was found dead in his cell on Sept. 30.
A TDCJ spokesperson said it appears Holley was assaulted.
The grieving mom said Holley was close to his release date.
“I know he wasn’t perfect, but he did his he did his time. He paid his dues. He shouldn’t have to die,” Lampkin said.
She said when her son told her about the lockdown, she thought that meant he would be safe from any violence happening inside.
“I mean, they were supposed to be on lockdown? I mean, so I don’t understand how this happened,” Lampkin said.
As with all deaths, the Office of the Inspector General is investigating what happened to Holley.
Fatal overdoses
On top of the murders, there have been 17 fatal overdoses this year as of early October.
That is the same amount as all of 2022 and five more than in 2021.
KSAT Investigates gathered data from the California Correctional Health Care Services.
As of September 22, 2023, there’ve been 11 fatal drug overdoses. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation saw 43 overdose cases in 2022 and 24 in 2021.
“Think of a prison like a small city. Right? And it’s reflective of what’s happening outside in the free world,” said Jason Clark, chief of staff for TDCJ.
They’re finding meth, fentanyl, cocaine, PCP, amphetamines and large amounts of K2 or synthetic marijuana.
Several staff members have been arrested for their involvement in bringing in drugs.
“We’re committed to rooting them out, finding those individuals, and ensuring that they’re arrested and hopefully prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Clark said.
Other ways people are attempting to smuggle in drugs vary from basics of throwing things over the barbed wire fencing to even more creative with drone drops of illicit substances and cellphones.
“Considerable increase in some categories (200%, 300%, 400%) increase,” Lumpkin said. “Mail is one of the main pipelines.”
Possible solutions
To combat the arising problems inside the TDCJ system, officials are trying out some significant changes, starting with the mailroom.
At the Wynne Unit in Huntsville, the mailroom is a busy place as each letter, book, magazine, and package is thoroughly checked.
“They try to be creative of how they hide it in the paper or in the envelopes, in the books,” mailroom supervisor Margaret Thomas told KSAT. “If it’s glued like this, that means they tampered with it. And we usually run a little rod in here to make sure nothing has been stuffed in here.”
Before the lockdown began in September, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced its transition to a fully digital mail system.
After a successful pilot launch, TDCJ decided to roll things out system-wide.
All mail now comes to a designated facility in Farmers Branch, outside of Dallas.
“The concept is that the letter would be scanned and uploaded back to the unit and then released to the inmate tablet within 72 hours,” Lumpkin said.
All of this is an effort to interrupt the stream of contraband being smuggled through the mail system.
Every inmate has been issued a tablet through TDCJ, he said.
“The mail system was a value-added part of the contract for the tablets in the phone system. And so with the tablet system, that’s not costing TDCJ any funds,” Lumpkin said.
Courtland Wayne King, an inmate at the Wynne Unit, says most of his mail was already coming in through his tablet.
“But some people it probably will hurt ‘em, like the most thing is letters. I mean, cards during holidays, right? That’s the big thing for me,” King said.
Thomas believes the change will help, but it won’t stop contraband altogether.
“The inmates are going to get crafty and more and more ideas, and they’re going to try to get it in through the legal mail, which we’re more on alert on that,” Thomas said.
TDCJ is also ramping up security with new millimeter wave scanners. Those will be getting an upgrade soon.
“In the new budget for the next two years, within that is $8 million for us to install additional metal wave scan systems in our maximum security facilities such as you see in the airport,” Lumpkin said.
Why the rise in problems?
With all of the changes and efforts, one question remains: What’s driving the increase?
Chief of Staff Jason Clark points to a few reasons.
“Back during COVID, inmates did receive stimulus checks, so there was a significant amount of money, millions and millions of dollars that came into inmate’s hands,” Clark said.
Another big reason is staffing challenges.
Across the TDCJ system, they are short approximately 6,500 correctional officers.
“We’re about a 72% staffing level, some units are 100% staffed. But more than not, they are not 100% staff,” Lumpkin said.
This lockdown is seen as a systemwide reset. TDCJ hopes that the lockdown, in combination with systemic changes, will stop the dangerous trends they’re seeing.
“Our charge and our mission is to provide public safety and ensure everything we do ties back to that,” Lumpkin said.
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