Eastham Unit
 Location in Texas
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| Location | 2665 Prison Road #1 Lovelady, Texas 75851 |
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| Coordinates | 30°58′39″N 95°37′57″W / 30.97750°N 95.63250°WCoordinates: 30°58′39″N 95°37′57″W / 30.97750°N 95.63250°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | G1-G4, Administrative Segregation, Outside Trusty, Transient |
| Capacity | Unit: 2,153 Trusty Camp: 321 |
| Opened | April 1917 |
| Managed by | TDCJ Correctional Institutions Division |
| Warden | Kevin Wheat |
| County | Houston County |
| Country | US |
| Website | www |
Eastham Unit (EA) is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison for men, located in unincorporated Houston County, Texas GPS Coordinates 30.978106, -95.632274. The 12,789 acres (5,176 ha) prison is located at the dead end of Farm to Market Road 230, near Lovelady and 13 miles (21 km) west of Trinity. Eastham, nicknamed "the Ham," is 40 miles (64 km) up the Trinity River from the Polunsky Unit in West Livingston, and it is about one thirds of the distance between Polunsky and the Christina Crain Unit (formerly Gatesville Unit) in Gatesville. Robert Perkinson, author of Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire, said that while the TDCJ and other agencies operate many types of prisons and jails in Texas, "if any unit stands for the rest," it would be Eastham.
In 1972 prisoners at Eastham filed a class action law suit against the Texas Department of Corrections and won. In 1979 the court found conditions of imprisonment within the TDC prison system constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the United States Constitution. While there were many names included in the law suit, David Ruiz was the first name listed and that is how the case was titled, so to speak. He was not, however the only inmate with claims of abusive punishment, overcrowding, poor healthcare and sanitation, fire safety deficiencies, and many other irregularities.
Before the American Civil War, the land now making up Eastham was cleared by slaves. After the civil war, sharecroppers originally worked the land. The sharecroppers were replaced by prisoners under a convict leasing program. In 1896, Mrs. D. Eastham agreed to pay $14.50 per month per person for 119 convicted men, including many African-Americans. The Eastham Unit opened in April 1917, becoming the first maximum security prison in Texas. It was named after the Eastham Family, the original owners of the land occupied by the prison. Throughout Eastham's history, many prisoners dreaded being sent to Eastham because of the arduous work assignments, the dangerous conditions, and the difficulty of escaping the unit. Many crackdowns and work strikes occurred during the unit's history. Throughout its history Eastham housed maximum security male prisoners and made them work in the fields.
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Wikipedia