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United States

O. B. Ellis 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Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date.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 O. B. Ellis Unit

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

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Capacity

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Current population

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Occupancy

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Year opened

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Operational

Figures from official sources · verified 29 May 2026 · methodology

Facility profile

Operator

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Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

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Region

—

Security level

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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 that Raymond Riles languished on death row at the Ellis Unit for decades with severe mental illness, noting that in the 1970s, death row inmates could access the exercise yard for three 90-minute periods a week.

Contact & address

Official site

Conditions Risk Score

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

10/100
Low concern10/100
Overcrowding
0/30
Oversight reports
0/30
Structural flags
5/15
Death signals
5/15
Conditions text
0/10

What the score is responding to:

  • · Substantial documented known-issues record
  • · In-custody-death signal in sources

This facility scores 10. The national average across 7,437 scored United States facilities is 2 — 8 points above national average.

Related facilities

All in United States →

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

Reports

  • marshall-project4 Feb 2021

    n death row longer than anyone in America. He’s one of many who have languished there for decades with severe mental illnesses. Raymond Riles, right, with Ronald O'Bryan at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, Texas, in 1979. In that era, incarcerated people on death row could go to the exercise yard for three 90-minute periods a week. Bruce Jackson Raymond Riles arrived on Texas’s death row in 1976,

    source

Data completeness

20%

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). O. B. Ellis Unit. Retrieved October 24, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/prisons/o-b-ellis-unit
Chicago
"O. B. Ellis Unit." World Prisons. Accessed October 24, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/prisons/o-b-ellis-unit.
BibTeX
@misc{worldprisons-o-b-ellis-unit,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {O. B. Ellis Unit},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/prisons/o-b-ellis-unit},
  urldate = {2026-10-24}
}