MTC Takes Over Willacy Unit

Today our Unit is officially being taken over by a private prison company called MTC. We were being operated by La Salle Corrections before. This Unit is really not designed to house state prisoners, therefore we are being denied numerous services & privileges that we would have on a normal unit ran by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correctional Institutions Division. Most of us have been sent here due to the heat-related lawsuits. Probably the number one thing that would help us all at this Unit is better access to a better stocked & updated law library. As it is we are only allowed three inmates in the library at a time & it is very difficult to even have our I-60 requests returned to us.

All of the services here are overwhelmed by the recent influx of TDCJ prisoners. Dental, mental health, medical records, the barber shop etc are all behind and unable to provide adequate services to us. Our outside recreation yards do not have toilets no shade nor cold water & when they do call outside rec we are only given 30-45 minutes once a day. We will see if things improve under new management. The new warden is a female named Rodriguez. She showed up at our dorm at 6:30 AM yesterday to say hello & look around while they were serving chow … I have fallen back on writing my grievances because I was driving myself a little crazy & I also believe that grievances are the reason that I have been transferred all over the state & sent to a Unit where I am not allowed to have my typewriter anymore. TDCJ is supposed to be issuing tablets to all of its Units within 18 months but it is unclear if we will get them here at the Willacy Unit.