Over the years, Texas prison administrators have tried various ways to keep drugs out. They have moved to scanning and digitizing all incoming personal mail. They have prohibited staff and volunteers from bringing liquids inside. They have used search dogs. And they have instituted an anonymous tip line for prisoners to report suspicious activities.
In September 2023, the administration even locked down every state prison to search for drugs and contraband.
Yet none of these tactics have seemed to significantly dampen the flow.
Then, in January 2025, prisoners in five maximum security prisons across Texas received a notice on their tablets announcing a new plan: 15-day lockdowns.
The notice said these lockdowns will be the new norm for any individual violations in a living area. This pilot policy tries collective punishment as a new deterrent against drugs, and expands the restrictions placed on residents. In April, the 15-day lockdowns were expanded beyond the initial five prisons.
During the lockdowns, all activities except medical appointments are suspended, including commissary, recreation, group meals, in-person education, visits, e-messaging services and even phone calls to family.
Prison officials have never before taken away communication with families. Many of us are skeptical that cutting people off from critical support systems for more than two weeks will work. Residents at the J. Dale Wainwright Unit, where I used to be housed, said the policy would increase prison violence and damage already fragile family relationships.
Even before the lockdowns, prisons in Texas were tinderboxes. According to the Houston Chronicle, homicides have jumped 650% since 2015 and, last year, serious assaults reached their highest levels in a decade. When he announced the new lockdowns, then-Texas Department of Criminal Justice Executive Director Bryan Collier cited the increase in drug-related violent incidents as the reason for the 2023 statewide lockdown.
But many of us here in Texas prisons fear collective punishment will only make prisons more violent. That’s because people sometimes assault a violator who causes a prison lockdown. This form of vigilantism is known as being “put in the bowl.”
Two prisoners I interviewed shortly after the new policy was announced agreed.
“I guess it’s time to start busting heads,” one man said. “They want to punish all of us because of what a few are doing? Might as well start taking these fools out of the game.”
Another man, who has been in prison for over 30 years, agreed.
“It’s gonna get bloody,” he said. “But I guess that’s what they want.”
Prison officials know of this danger. Some refer to it as “inmate justice.” The expectation that residents will police themselves seems to be the purpose of punishing everyone instead of just the violators. At Rufe Jordan Unit, where I was previously housed, an officer told me his lieutenant instructed him not to write disciplinary cases for these vigilante assaults.
The new policy also cuts incarcerated Texans off from their support systems, and 15 days is enough time to cause cracks. One resident I spoke with was incensed at the thought of not being able to visit with or call his family. He’s worried his marriage would be destroyed as a result.
“Why am I kept away from my wife and kids because somebody else wants to get high or sell drugs?” he asked. “What’s that got to do with me?”
Texas’ prison system already has a specific code to punish individuals for drug-related violations. But those cases were rarely written up at my previous prison. According to two officers I spoke to, corrections staff are reluctant to use this disciplinary code because it would reveal the overwhelming amount of drugs in the system.
Several residents in my unit have also expressed concern for those with mental health issues.
“[Prison officials] shouldn’t be surprised when this results in more suicides,” one person told me. “This all just feels hopeless.”
It is too early to tell what the long-term effects of this policy will be. But less than a year after it went into effect, violence is rife in Texas prisons. In September, while in transit at the William G. McConnell Unit in southern Texas, I spoke with two men who had just transferred from the Alan B. Polunsky Unit northwest of Houston. They attributed two homicides last summer there to the new policy. “They keep locking us down for what somebody else did, and we’re gonna keep doing what we do,” one told me.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not respond to requests for comment made by PJP editors.