World Prisons
All prisons

United States

Barry Telford Unit

LowLow
Verified
Aging · 5mo ago
Sources last reviewed on

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

For families

How to send mail, money, and visit Barry Telford Unit

Step-by-step guidance using the United States system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

Open toolkit

Background

The Barry B. Telford Unit (TO) a.k.a. Telford Unit (opened July 1995) is a Texas state prison located in unincorporated Bowie County, Texas. The facility, along Texas State Highway 98, is 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Interstate 30. It has a "New Boston, Texas" mailing address, and is in proximity to Texarkana.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

—

Current population

—

Occupancy

—

Year opened

1995

Operational

Figures from official sources · verified 28 May 2026 · methodology

Facility profile

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

1995

Region

—

Security level

—

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

The Marshall Project reported in April 2020 that the first Texas prisoner to die after testing positive for the coronavirus was incarcerated at the Telford Unit.

Contact & address

Official site

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

5/100
Low concern5/100
Overcrowding
0/30
Oversight reports
0/30
Structural flags
5/15
Death signals
0/15
Conditions text
0/10

What the score is responding to:

  • · Substantial documented known-issues record

This facility scores 5. The national average across 7,437 scored United States facilities is 2 — 3 points above national average.

Related facilities

All in United States →

Same country, matched on type + security level where possible.

Reports

  • marshall-project15 Apr 2020

    his! Newsletters Events Donate Feedback? [email protected] The first Texas prisoner to die after testing positive for the coronavirus was incarcerated at the Telford Unit near Texarkana. Shelby Knowles for The Texas Tribune Filed 6:00 a.m. EDT 04.15.2020 Coronavirus What Happens When More Than 300,000 Prisoners Are Locked Down? The United States is about to find out as off

    source

  • marshall-project29 Sept 2016

    e you,” again. And they will definitely never know that when he told us that story, a light shined through this dark, desperate place. Christopher Dye is a 53-year-old inmate at Telford Unit in New Boston, Texas, where he is serving life without parole for a murder he committed while in prison. His original conviction in 1996 was for multiple aggravated sexual assaults. Our reporting has real

    source

  • marshall-project11 Jun 2015

    ed that he be provided therapy....[and] would benefit from a program to learn independent/daily life skills.” Instead, Mark was soon moved to a maximum-security adult prison, the Telford Unit in New Boston, Texas. And within six months, he landed in a segregation cell for allegedly threatening to escape. Mark had told his mother that he was nervous around the older prisoners, particularly his

    source

Data completeness

24%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA
World Prisons. (2026). Barry Telford Unit. Retrieved October 21, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/prisons/barry-telford-unit
Chicago
"Barry Telford Unit." World Prisons. Accessed October 21, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/prisons/barry-telford-unit.
BibTeX
@misc{worldprisons-barry-telford-unit,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {Barry Telford Unit},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/prisons/barry-telford-unit},
  urldate = {2026-10-21}
}