Garza West Unit

A TDCJ transfer and intake facility for men at the Chase Field complex in Beeville, where people entering the prison system are received and classified.

Overview

The Garza West Unit is a TDCJ transfer and intake facility for men, established in 1994. It sits at the Chase Field complex in Beeville, in Bee County. TDCJ lists its capacity at about 2,278 beds.

A transfer facility receives people transferred from county jails after sentencing, processes and classifies them, and then assigns them to a permanent unit. Because of that role, most people housed at Garza West are there temporarily. The unit operates a dedicated Family Visitation Center.

What Makes Garza West Different

• It is an intake and receiving (transfer) facility, so a person’s assignment here is temporary; classification ends with reassignment to a permanent unit
• It shares the Chase Field complex in Beeville with the Garza East Unit, a separate transfer facility at an adjacent address; the two units operate together but are distinct, and which unit a person is at affects the visiting list and the exact location
• The two unit names are easy to confuse, so the TDCJ inmate locator is the reliable check for which unit a person is assigned to

Visiting Hours and Procedures

The statewide rules above — approval, ID, prohibited items, and dress code — apply at the Garza West Unit. What follows is specific to this unit.

Visits are scheduled through the TDCJ Online Visitation Portal. Because Garza West is an intake facility, the timing of a first visit is less predictable than at a permanent unit. During the intake period a person may not yet be settled into a stable housing assignment, and a reassignment to another unit can come on short notice. The TDCJ inmate locator shows the current unit assignment, which is the reliable check before traveling.

Getting There and Parking

Garza West is in Beeville, in Bee County, in South Texas between Corpus Christi and San Antonio. The two cities are the nearest large service centers and the usual approach points.

Because Garza West and Garza East sit at adjacent addresses on the same complex, confirming the exact unit and its address before arriving avoids checking in at the wrong unit.

Phones, Mail, and Video

Contact has a sequence to it. A phone number must be on the incarcerated person’s approved contact list before calls can connect, and during and shortly after intake that approval — along with mail and visitation setup — can take time to process while a person is being received and classified. Calls are placed by the incarcerated person on TDCJ’s Securus phone system; a prison cannot be called into. Account setup, rates, and video options are covered in Phone & Video Calls.

Nearby Services

Beeville is the nearest town for gas, food, groceries, and lodging. Corpus Christi, about an hour to the southeast, has a wider range of hotels and services for families traveling a longer distance.

For support beyond the unit itself, the Texas Inmate Families Association is a statewide nonprofit focused on education, advocacy, and prison-system navigation resources for families with someone in TDCJ custody.

Learn More

For detailed information about visiting and communicating with someone at a Texas state prison:

• Visiting in Texas — TDCJ approval process, dress code, scheduling
• Mail & Packages — what you can send and what gets rejected
• Phone & Video Calls — Securus accounts, call costs, video visits
• Sending Money — how to add funds to a TDCJ trust account
• Medical & Mental Health — healthcare in TDCJ facilities
• Transfers — what happens during transfers