Christina Melton Crain Unit

The Christina Melton Crain Unit is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison for females in Gatesville, Texas. The prison is along Texas State Highway 36, 3mi north of central Gatesville. The unit, with about 1317sqft of space, is co-located with the Hilltop Unit, the Dr. Lane Murray Unit, and the Linda Woodman Unit. The unit's regular program houses around 1,500 women, and it is one of Texas's main prisons for women. Female prison offenders of the TDCJ are released from this unit. With a capacity of 2,013 inmates, Crain is the TDCJ's largest female prison.HistoryThe Gatesville Unit, formed on portions of the former Gatesville State School, opened in August 1980. The portions of Gatesville State School that became the Crain Unit include the Live Oak, Riverside, Sycamore, Terrace, and Valley schools, while the Hackberry and Hilltop units of the former state school became the Hilltop Unit. The Gatesville Unit was named after the City of Gatesville.From its opening until several years before 2010, the Gatesville Unit was primarily a work farm, and staff members placed new prisoners in the fields to work. Due to reductions in staffing levels and new security mandates, the prison's agricultural operations were curtailed. In 2008 the Texas Board of Criminal Justice unanimously voted to rename the Gatesville Unit after Christina Melton Crain, the first female chairperson of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice; on that day the name change was effective immediately. Crain, a resident of the Preston Hollow area of Dallas, worked as a lawyer. She left the Texas Board of Criminal Justice in May 2008.