Allan B. Polunsky Unit (TL, formerly the Terrell Unit) is a prison in West Livingston, unincorporated Polk County, Texas, United States, located approximately southwest of Livingston along Farm to Market Road 350. - Note the 2010 U.S. census maps: index and pages 1 and 2"Polunsky Unit." Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved on January 27, 2012. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) operates the facility, that has a maximum capacity of 2,900. Livingston Municipal Airport is located on the other side of FM 350."Plane makes emergency landing near prison." Associated Press at The Victoria Advocate. Friday April 30, 2004. Local/State 7A. Retrieved on Google News (page 4 of 43), May 9, 2010.
Polunsky was named after Allan B. Polunsky, a former chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice and former chairman of the Public Safety Commission, the governing board of the Texas Department of Public Safety.Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Turner Publishing Company, 2004. 103. , .Public Safety Commission website. Texas Department of Public Safety. Retrieved on September 26, 2010.
Polunsky houses Texas' "supermax" units,Ward, Mike. "Death row inmates free guard, meet with activists" , Austin American-Statesman. February 23, 2000. "A prison guard held hostage by two execution-bound killers inside Texas' super max death row [...]" and "Tuesday deep inside the maximum-security Terrell Unit just outside [...]" and is notable for being the location of Texas's death row for men, although executions are conducted at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, to the west.Perkinson, Robert. Texas_Tough:_The_Rise_of_America's_Prison_Empire. First Edition. Metropolitan_Books, 2010. p. 37; .
History The Polunsky Unit opened in November 1993. At the time of its opening the public did not associate the prison with the death penalty, as the state's male death row inmates were housed at the Ellis Unit near Huntsville. In November 1998 Martin Gurule, a death row inmate in the Ellis Unit, escaped. He drowned in a nearby creek and his body was found a week later.Staff and Wire Reports. "Death-row inmates take officer hostage Warden negotiates with prisoners". The Dallas Morning News. February 22, 2000. Retrieved on May 7, 2010. "He was later found dead near the prison, but his escape hastened the decision to house death-row inmates at the Polunsky Unit, prison officials have said."
After the incident occurred, the TDCJ considered moving the death row for men, and the Polunsky Unit was the favored choice for the relocation.Graczyk, Michael. "Texas considers move of death row". Associated Press at The Nevada Daily Mail. Sunday January 24, 1999. Page 10 Classifieds. Retrieved from Google News (page 6 of 81) on November 14, 2010. According to the TDCJ, the prison escape attempt had hastened the agency's decision to move death row inmates to a new location. TDCJ officials also stated that overcrowding at Ellis was another factor in the death row move."Prison board OKs moving death row." Associated Press at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Saturday May 22, 1999. Retrieved on March 24, 2016. Six months after the escape attempt, the TDCJ decided to move the death row."Prisoners at new Death Row unit face increased isolation Inmates caged 'like animals waiting for slaughter', activist says". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. February 28, 2000. 1 News. Retrieved on May 7, 2010. The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty criticized the move of the death row, saying that the conditions of the prisoners were worse than those in their previous location. The Texas Board of Criminal Justice approved the relocation of the men's death row on Friday May 21, 1999.
Polunsky took the death row inmates on Friday June 18, 1999, with the first 55 inmates all classified as being troublesome."First condemned inmates moved to new death row near Livingston." Associated Press at Lubbock Journal-Avalanche. Saturday, June 19, 1999. Retrieved on March 24, 2016. The death row transfer, which took ten months, was the largest transfer of condemned prisoners in history and was performed under heavy security.
In February 2000 two death row inmates took a 57-year-old female corrections officer hostage, forcing negotiations involving the warden.Staff and Wire Reports. "Death-row inmates take officer hostage – warden negotiates with prisoners". The Dallas Morning News. February 22, 2000. Retrieved on May 7, 2010. One of the hostage-takers, Ponchai Wilkerson (TDCJ#999011Ponchai Wilkerson profile at Texas Department of Criminal Justice website. Retrieved on January 27, 2012.), was scheduled to be executed on March 14, 2000, and was, in fact, later executed on that date."Executed Inmates." Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved on September 26, 2026. The other, Howard Guidry, had no scheduled execution date. Guidry remains on death row."Inmates on Death Row". Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved on September 26, 2026.
On May 9, 2000, 33-year-old death row inmate Juan Salvez Soria (TDCJ#837Juan Salvez Soria profile at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website. Retrieved on January 27, 2012.), who was scheduled to be executed on July 26, 2000, pulled the arm of 78-year-old William Paul Westbrook, a prison chaplain from Livingston, into his cell. The offender tied a sheet around the chaplain's arm and tied the other end to a toilet; Soria began cutting Westbrook's arm with a razor blade. The offender nearly tore Westbrook's arm off. The authorities used tear gas to stop the attack. Authorities treated Soria's former cell as a crime scene and moved Soria to a more restricted area within the prison."Texas death row inmate severs chaplain's arm with razor" . CNN. June 9, 2000. Retrieved on May 9, 2010. Soria was executed on schedule.
The Texas Board unanimously approved giving former Terrell Unit its current name, Allan B. Polunsky Unit,Timms, Ed. "Terrell Unit is renamed". The Dallas Morning News. July 21, 2001. Retrieved on January 1, 2010. on July 20, 2001. The board also voted to rename the Ramsey III Unit in Brazoria County, Texas to the Terrell Unit. The former namesake, a Dallas insurance executive named Charles Terrell, requested the name change because he did not want his name associated with death row because of questions about the administration of the death penalty. In addition he reportedly was ambivalent regarding capital punishment."Terrell weary of death row link". San Antonio Express-News. July 15, 2001. Metro/South Texas 5B. Retrieved on January 1, 2010. In exchange, the former Ramsey III Unit was renamed the Terrell Unit.Timms, Ed. "Uneasy about death row, Terrell wants name off unit Prison expected to be renamed". The Dallas Morning News. July 14, 2001. Retrieved on May 9, 2010. "Another prison the Ramsey III unit in Brazoria County probably will be renamed for Mr Terrell."
In 2010, the TDCJ accused five men who were serving life sentences of attempting to break out of the unit.Apodaca, Gene. "Three shot, two injured after attempted prison break" . KTRK-TV. Saturday, January 30, 2010. Retrieved on May 12, 2010. Robert Perkinson, author of Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire, said in 2010 that Polunsky "probably" is "the hardest place to do time in Texas." Perkinson added that while the prison is not in a "gloomy" location and that the facility is not "dangerously dilapidated", the prison's "existential problem" is the fact that it is the state death row.
In May 2013 Mother Jones magazine ranked Polunsky as one of the ten worst prisons in the US, based on Congressional testimony from former inmate Anthony Charles Graves (TDCJ Death Row#999127,"Anthony Charles Graves." () Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved on March 16, 2014. released due to overturning of conviction on September 7, 2006"Inmates No Longer on Death Row" Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved on September 26, 2026.) and research conducted by the magazine during a three-year period.Moravec, Eva Ruth. "Texas prison named second-worst in U.S. " San Antonio Express-News. Thursday May 2, 2013. Retrieved on August 11, 2013.
In 2025, the unit saw two inmate on inmate homicides, one suicide, and one suspected drug overdose death in the span of two weeks. The deaths prompted a lockdown of the unit alongside eighteen other high security TDCJ units as part of a crackdown against violence and an influx of illegal drugs.Blakinger, Keri. "Four deaths in two weeks: What’s behind the surge in violence at one Texas prison," Tuesday September 2, 2025. Retrieved on November 20, 2025.
As of 2014 the prison had 691 employees and 2,936 prisoners. As of that year there were 279 men on Polunsky's death row.Hannaford, Alex. " Inmates Aren't the Only Victims of the Prison-Industrial Complex" ( ). The Nation. September 16, 2014. Retrieved on January 20, 2016.
Operations The facility has twenty-three buildings, on of land. The surrounding area includes fields and forests. It has a capacity of about 2,900 prisoners.
David Casstevens of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram described Polunsky as "a somber complex of putty-gray concrete buildings trimmed in blue on 470 fenced acres."Casstevens, David. "A life spent facing death: He was sent to Death Row on Jan. 8, 1976. His execution is scheduled for Jan. 25, 2007. If the order is carried out, he will have spent 11,340 days on Death Row. Fort Worth Star-Telegram. January 14, 2007. Retrieved on January 1, 2010. Miriam Rozen of the Houston Press said that the unit "sits amid the same kind of lush, green and hilly East Texas terrain that surrounds Governor Bush's lake house 100 miles to the north in Athens."Rozen, Miriam. "Death Row Show". Houston Press. July 13, 2000. 2. Retrieved on January 1, 2010. Marc Bookman of Mother Jones said that the prison "looks as one might imagine a death row would look—a series of imposing concrete structures surrounded by excessive razor wire and four guard towers."Bookman, Marc. "How Crazy Is Too Crazy to Be Executed?" Mother Jones. Tuesday February 12, 2013. 3. Retrieved on March 23, 2013. Alex Hannaford of The Nation described it as a "bleak, foreboding complex".
The Polunsky Unit was designed to house more problematic and dangerous inmates; the officials designed the unit to be more secure than the older TDCJ units. Throughout its history the unit housed administrative segregation offenders (offenders in solitary confinement due to chronic misbehavior or violence). The building housing death row inmates is separate from the rest of the compound. Polunsky has a kitchen, a medical treatment clinic, psych interview rooms, and classification office space. Robert Perkinson, author of Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire, said that Polunsky, a white concrete building with blue steel supports, is "functionally designed and pleasantly asymmetrical" and that a person would mistake the building for a community college "if not for the three-inch window slits."
Death row operations As of March 2013 about 290 male death row prisoners are housed in Polunsky.Grissom, Brandi. "Trouble in Mind." Texas Monthly. March 2013. Volume 41, Issue 3. p. 192 As of March 2013 eight are instead housed in Jester IV Unit, a psychiatric unit near Richmond, Texas.Grissom, Brandi. "Andre Thomas: Struggling to Maintain Sanity In Prison." Texas Tribune. February 25, 2013. p. 5. Retrieved on March 23, 2013. "Eight death row inmates, including Thomas, are now housed at the Jester IV unit in Richmond, one of three psychiatric facilities in the prison system." Photographs taken inside death row were provided by the State of Texas in response to a Freedom of Information Act (United States) request filed by attorney Yolanda Torres in 2009.Whitaker, Thomas Bartlett. "." Minutes_Before_Six. August 15, 2009. Retrieved on June 15, 2018.