Clicking on any of the Texas facilities below will direct you to an information page with Inmate Search, Visitation, Mail, Phone, Email, Most Wanted and FAQ for families and friends.
Texas has one of the largest prison systems in the United States. It is run by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), which was created in 1989 when the old Texas Department of Corrections was merged with the state’s parole and adult probation agencies. The system’s roots go back to the Huntsville Unit, known as the “Walls,” which received its first prisoners on October 2, 1849, and is still in use today.
On August 31, 2025, TDCJ’s official count was 138,901 people: about 132,350 in prisons, 3,570 in state jails and nearly 3,000 in substance abuse felony punishment facilities. About 11,100 of them, or 8%, were women. The department runs about 100 facilities across the state, a mix of prisons (called units), state jails for low-level felonies, pre-release centers, substance abuse treatment facilities and medical units. A handful are operated under contract by private companies such as CoreCivic and GEO Group.
For decades Texas ran its prisons as cotton and farm plantations with just 18 units. That ended with Ruiz v. Estelle, a lawsuit filed by prisoner David Ruiz in 1972. In 1980 a federal judge found conditions unconstitutional, and the system spent more than two decades under court supervision. A building boom followed in the 1990s.
People sentenced to prison often wait weeks in a county jail before TDCJ picks them up. Men are then processed at intake and diagnostic units such as the Byrd Unit in Huntsville. Women go to the Reception Center at the Christina Crain Unit in Gatesville, the hub of the state’s women’s prisons. After medical, psychological and education testing, each person is assigned to a permanent unit.
Search the TDCJ Inmate Information Search by name, TDCJ number or SID (state identification) number. The results list the person’s current unit, projected release date and parole eligibility. Use the TDCJ number on all mail and deposits.
Summer heat is the most pressing issue in Texas prisons. In early 2026 nearly two-thirds of prisoners, about 90,000 people, lived in units without air conditioning. On September 22, 2026, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin ruled that the conditions amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and ordered TDCJ to air-condition every unit by the end of 2029. TDCJ plans to appeal. Its own estimates put the cost of a full retrofit at up to $1.5 billion.
Texas has carried out more executions than any other state: 602 since it resumed in 1982, more than a third of the national total. On December 7, 1982, Charles Brooks Jr. became the first person in the world executed by lethal injection. Texas now uses a single dose of pentobarbital. Before that, 361 people died in the electric chair, “Old Sparky,” between 1924 and 1964.
Men on death row are held at the Polunsky Unit near Livingston, where death row moved from the Ellis Unit in 1999 after an escape. Women on death row are held in Gatesville. On April 1, 2026, death row held 167 people, 7 of them women, the smallest number since 1985, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. All executions take place in the Walls Unit in Huntsville. Texas carried out six executions in 2026 through September, most recently Ker’Sean Ramey on September 23.
Huntsville was also home to the Texas Prison Rodeo, held at the Walls from 1931 to 1986, and the Texas Prison Museum there displays Old Sparky.
The Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) was formed in December 2011 by merging the Texas Youth Commission and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. It runs five secure youth prisons holding about 750 young people: Evins Regional Juvenile Center (Edinburg), Gainesville State School, Giddings State School, McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility (Mart) and Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex (Brownwood), along with halfway houses. On August 1, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice found that conditions at all five violated the Constitution, citing excessive force, prolonged isolation, failure to protect youth from sexual abuse and poor mental health and special education services. In August 2026, after a youth brutally assaulted an officer at a North Texas facility, TJJD put its prisons on a statewide lockdown that kept hundreds of youth in their cells for days. As advocates pushed to close the five prisons, TJJD broke ground in fall 2026 on two new facilities, one in Waxahachie for youth with the highest mental and behavioral health needs and one south of Houston for youth with violent behavior. Youth awaiting court are held in county juvenile detention centers, and county probation departments handle most cases. Juvenile records are confidential, so families should contact TJJD or the county juvenile probation department directly.
To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice or Texas Juvenile Justice Department, choose a facility from the list below.