The George Beto Unit (B) is a men's maximum security prison of the

Texas Department of Criminal Justice The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) 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 jai ...

located in unincorporated Anderson County,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, US. The unit is located along Farm to Market Road 3328, south of

Tennessee Colony Tennessee Colony is an unincorporated area, unincorporated community in Anderson County, Texas, Anderson County, in the U.S. state of Texas. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 300 in 2000. It is located within th ...

. The prison, co-located with Coffield Unit, Michael Unit, and Powledge Unit prisons and the Gurney Unit transfer facility, has of land.
"

. Retrieved on June 5, 2010. The unit currently houses over 3,400 offenders. The unit opened in June 1980. It has the Correctional Institutions Division Region II Maintenance headquarters. The unit was named after

George Beto George John Beto (January 19, 1916 – December 4, 1991) was a director of the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC), a criminal justice expert in penology, a professor, and a Lutheran minister. He was previously the president of Concordia Luthe ...

, who served as prison director from 1962 to 1972. In 2008 Perryn Keys of the ''

Beaumont Enterprise ''The Beaumont Enterprise'' is a newspaper of Hearst Communications, headquartered in Beaumont, Texas Beaumont is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the seat of government of Jefferson County, within the Beaumont– Port Arthur ...

'' said that Beto "has been described as a gladiator’s playground — a hardcore joint, even as prisons go."Keys, Perryn.
JASPER: THE ROAD BACK: Did prison time turn man into one of Byrd's killers?
''

''. June 9, 2008. Retrieved on July 23, 2010. That year,

Ricardo Ainslie Ricardo Ainslie is a Mexican-American documentary filmmaker. A native of Mexico City, his work is highly interdisciplinary in character, which explains his formal affiliations with the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies, the Depar ...

, an author and a professor in the educational psychology department of the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, said that when he toured Beto with the warden, he was "scared (expletive)." Joyce King, author of the 2002 book ''Hate Crime: The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas'', said that Beto's reputation as a "gladiator" prison stems from the fact that most of its prisoners are in their mid-20s, relatively young. As of that year, some inmates are at the equivalent of a 4th year high school student (senior), and a few are near their 30s. King also said "The dubious distinction is also a warning—gladiators either fight because they must or because they like to."

History

In 2014 Curtis Garland, Jr., a prisoner from

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

who began a 12-year sentence for family violence in 2012, died of an asthma attack. His family believed that prison officials did not disclose the true details related to the death.

Facility

Beto has housing for its warden. The warden housing, in one duplex unit, is a part of three duplexes. One other duplex has housing for the warden of another unit, and one is unoccupied as of 2002. The prison places its confirmed

gang members A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...

in the F Wing. The far southern wing, PTRC, is a pre-release wing.King, Joyce. ''Hate Crime: The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas''. Random House, Inc., 2002
97
Retrieved from

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on November 3, 2010. , . The prison currently has three unoccupied wings that are kept for emergency overflow. The three wings are old administrative segregation wings from when the unit housed MROP offenders. Currently, the only occupied wings are A, B, C, D, E, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, P, T, U, O (transient wing), X (PHD, Seg, solitary wing).

Custody levels

* General Population: G1 - G4 * Administrative Segregation * Transient * Outside * Trusty

Notable inmates

* Lawrence Russell Brewer: murderer of James Byrd, Jr., executed in 2011. * John William "Bill" King: murderer of James Byrd, Jr., executed in 2019. * David Brooks: accomplice of Houston child murderer

Dean Corll Dean Arnold Corll (December 24, 1939 – August 8, 1973) was an American serial killer and pederast who abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered a minimum of 28 teenage boys and young men between 1970 and 1973 in Houston and Pasadena, Texas. He w ...

References

External links

Beto Unit

.
List of prisoners in the Beto Unit
-

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Beto, George Unit Prisons in Anderson County, Texas 1980 establishments in Texas