Allan B. Polunsky Unit

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Allan B. Polunsky Unit

The Allan B. Polunsky Unit , or Polunsky Unit for short , is a state prison in Polk County in the US state of Texas .

The Polunsky Unit is about five miles southwest of Livingston and opened in November 1993. The penal institution has space for 2,900 inmates. The penitentiary is operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice . The prison also includes the state's death row , among other things .

Death row

The prison is run as a Supermax high security prison and includes, among other things, the death row for all male persons sentenced to death in the state. However, executions are carried out in the Huntsville Unit rather than the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, with inmates being transferred from the Polunsky Unit to the Huntsville Unit shortly before the scheduled execution date.

Those sentenced to death are housed in building 12 within the prison in 5.6 m 2 single cells with windows. Death row prisoners are not allowed to leave cells or work inside the facility. They wear a white prisoner uniform, like the other inmates, but with the black letters "DR" (for Death Row ) for special identification.

The author Robert Perkinson, editor of the book Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire , describes the Allan B. Polunsky Unit as "the hardest place to do time in Texas" ( the hardest place in Texas to serve your sentence ).

history

The detention center was opened in November 1993 under the name Terrell Unit with the intention of accepting all male death row prisoners in Texas in the future. The actual transfer of all death row inmates from the Ellis Unit did not take place until 1999, after an inmate on death row in the Ellis Unit managed to escape from prison in November 1998. The prison authorities then decided to move all death row to the Terrell Unit. On July 20, 2001, after the prison's previous namesake, Charles Terrell, no longer wanted to know his name in relation to the death penalty, the same authority decided to rename the prison to Allan B. Polunsky Unit. Polunsky, like Terrell, is a past chairman of the penal service.

Incidents

  • In February 2000, two inmates took a guard hostage to negotiate with the staff, but they failed. One of the hostage-takers for whom an execution date has already been set, Ponchai Wilkerson , was later executed as planned.
  • In May 2000, one of those sentenced to death pulled the arm of a prison priest through the bars into his cell and tried to cut it off with a razor blade. The guards managed to stop the incident by using irritant gas . The inmate Juan Salvez Soria was then transferred to a special section of the prison and later executed as planned.

Known inmates

  • Tommy Lynn Sells , American felon charged with between 13 and 60 murders in various states. Sentenced to death and executed on April 3, 2014.
  • Angel Maturino Resendez , serial killer known as "The Railroad Killer" . Imprisoned in Polunsky Unit, sentenced to death, and executed in Huntsville Unit in June 2006.
  • George Rivas , member of the notorious escape gang "Texas Seven", which started one of the largest manhunters in US history. When they broke out, they escaped from a maximum security prison, committed several robberies and shot and killed a police officer. Sentenced to death and executed on February 29, 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Perkinson: Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire , Metropolitan Books, 2010, ISBN 978-0-8050-8069-8
  2. ↑ Ed Timms: Terrell Unit is renamed . Article in the Dallas News on July 21, 2001.

Coordinates: 30 ° 41 ′ 56 "  N , 95 ° 0 ′ 51.5"  W.