O.L. McCotter to White, July 8, 1985
The prison system, always a thorny public issue, took
center stage again in the 1980s when federal district judge William
Wayne Justice issued a dramatic ruling in the case of Ruiz v. Estelle.
Justice ruled that conditions in Texas prisons were so dismal as to
violate the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution (the
prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment). Justice ordered the
state to reduce overcrowding, improve rehabilitation and recreation
programs, and otherwise improve treatment of prisoners. To faciliate
this reform, Judge Justice placed the Texas prison system under court
supervision.
The Texas prison system had remained basically unchanged
since a series of reforms in the late 1920s. But by the 1970s, conditions
that were always austere had become intolerable. The inmate population
had grown at an accelerated pace as the population of the state grew
and as public attitudes towards crime hardened. By the time of the
Ruiz lawsuit, inmates were packed into cells and dormitories,
with some even being housed in tents. Physical and sexual brutality
between inmates and beatings at the hands of guards were commonplace.
Medical and psychiatric care were negligible.
White and other Texas leaders were reluctant to make
the expensive remedies specified in the Ruiz ruling, including
the need to build new prisons. Instead, more inmates were freed on
parole in order to free up space for newly convicted inmates. Critics
called this a revolving-door policy, and Mark White and Bill Clements
both faced harsh criticism when violent offenders committed rapes
and murders after getting early release during their administrations.
The Texas prison system remained under court supervision
20 years after the Ruiz ruling. In the 1990s Texas spent billions
of dollars building new prisons, but serious problems remained.
The letter below from the director of the prison system
shows an example of the reporting required by the Ruiz ruling.
"Modern
Texas"
"Modern
Texas"
O.L. McCotter to White, July 8, 1985,
Records of Mark White, Texas Office of the Governor, Archives and
Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
