According to the Texas State Historical
passed the Prison Made Goods Act which
Association, between 1968 and 1978 the
established the Texas Correctional
Texas prison population grew by 101%,
Industries (TCI) and required that prison-
while the state population grew by only
produced goods be sold, for-profit, to
19%. Further, between 1962 and 1972,
other state institutions. With the passing
Black convicts made up roughly 44% of the
of this law, the TDC developed a coffee-
inmate population while Anglo-Americans
roasting plant, garment factories, a tire
made up 39% and Hispanics made up 17%.
facility, and a bus-repair shop, among
Yet, as reflected in data collected by the
other operations. The state’s development
U.S. census, Anglo-Americans have
of profitable prison operations continued;
historically been the majority demographic
in the 1978 report Texas Department of
of the Texas population. Research by
Corrections: 30 Years of Progress, the
sociologist Michelle Alexander and
TDC boasts about its agriculture,
historian Elizabeth Hinton, among many
business, construction, and industry
others, attribute the prison population
divisions - all of which, the report claims,
surge to the federal government’s
maximize citizen tax dollars and
expansion of the carceral state. More
rehabilitate prisoners. Ironically, the 1978
specifically, this research attributes the
report condemns past prison conditions
carceral state’s policing of Black
and lauds its progress despite the 1972
neighborhoods to the surge in the Black
case which charged the TDC with cruel
prison population.
and unusual punishment.
As problems facing communities of color
Despite the emboldened claims of the
persisted, lawmakers fought poverty and
1978 report, the prison system of this era
gaping inequality with law and order.
was tainted by inhumane living and
Hinton has traced policies from the
working conditions. In 1972, inmate David
Johnson administration through the
Ruiz hand-wrote a lawsuit against the
Reagan administration that funneled
TDC for overcrowding, inadequate
hundreds of billions of dollars into law
healthcare, inadequate security, severe
enforcement and criminal justice programs
and arbitrary punishment, and unsafe
that policed Black neighborhoods. Social
working conditions. These conditions,
unrest and protest further contributed to
argued Ruiz, violated the 8th Amendment
the policing of Black neighborhoods—a
which prohibits cruel and unusual
repetition of the racialized policing of the
punishment. The 1978 article, “Inmates
late nineteenth century that reverberates
Tell of Texas Prison Brutality” from the
still today. As argued by Alexander,
New York Times includes a testimony by a
incarceration and the war on drugs was
prisoner who was ordered to feed silage
also a form of retaliation against the Civil
into a threshing machine and
Rights movement in the 1960s. For
consequently lost both arms. In 1980,
policymakers, the answer to poverty,
when the case finally went to trial, Federal
crime, and social unrest was arrest and
District Judge William Wayne Justice
imprisonment to maintain the status quo.
ordered changes, including limiting prison capacities, hiring more guards and medical
To offset costs of the surging prison
personnel, and
stronger oversight. The
populations, Texas prisons followed the
1980 charges— and ruling—continued the
model established in the late nineteenth
pattern of investigations and failed reform
century, producing and selling goods
of the
early twentieth century. Early
through prison agriculture, mills, and
release
programs, attempting to maintain
factories. In 1963, the Texas legislature
the prison population, contributed to
