Eric Kayne Photography | Washington, DC

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On Assignment: Central Unit Prison Complex for The Wall Street Journal

I had to opportunity to tour a prison recently for The Wall Street Journal. I went to the Central Unit, a prison farm complex in Sugar Land, Texas that has been decommissioned. You can check out the slideshow here. A couple of my favorite photos are below. Even after being gutted, the place still had a menace to it. It wasn't any place I'd want to spend any part of my life in. Texas prisons don't have air conditioning and the place was infested with mold. With crime dropping, fewer tough-on-drugs laws that incarcerate non-violent offenders and less harsh sentences, the prison boom has begun to fizzle out.