George Beto Unit Inmate Lookup, Anderson County, TX

Palestine, TX George Beto Unit View

The George Beto Unit (B) is a men's maximum security prison of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice located in unincorporated Anderson County, Texas. The unit is located along Farm to Market Road 3328, 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Tennessee Colony. The prison, co-located with Coffield Unit, Michael Unit, and Powledge Unit prisons and the Gurney Unit transfer facility, has 20,518 acres (8,303 ha) of land.[1] The unit currently houses over 3,400 offenders. The unit opened in June 1980. It has the Correctional Institutions Division Region II Maintenance headquarters.[1] The unit was named after George Beto, who served as prison director from 1962 to 1972.[2] In 2008 Perryn Keys of the Beaumont Enterprise said that Beto "has been described as a gladiator’s playground — a hardcore joint, even as prisons go."[3] That year, Ricardo Ainslie, an author and a professor in the educational psychology department of the University of Texas, said that when he toured Beto with the warden, he was "scared (expletive)."[3] Joyce King, author of the 2002 book Hate Crime: The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas, said that Beto's reputation as a "gladiator" prison stems from the fact that most of its prisoners are in their mid-20s, relatively young. As of that year, some inmates are at the equivalent of a 4th year high school student (senior), and a few are near their 30s. King also said "The dubious distinction is also a warning—gladiators either fight because they must or because they like to.