Mail & Photos to the Coffield Unit. Why Letters Go to Dallas

The Dallas PO Box, and the Envelope Michael Gets by Mistake

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) stopped delivering personal mail to its units. Letters, greeting cards and photos now go to a Digital Mail Processing Center:

Texas Department of Criminal Justice
[Full First and Last Name] [TDCJ Number]
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400

The center scans each item in color and delivers it to his tablet, normally within about three business days. People without a tablet receive printed copies. Scanned originals are held for 90 days and then destroyed, unless you enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope to get the original back.

Two things decide whether a letter arrives. The envelope needs his full commitment name, meaning the name TDCJ holds on record and not one he goes by, and his eight-digit TDCJ number. Mail missing either is returned to sender.

That one address covers every TDCJ unit, which quietly solves the worst problem on this property. Coffield, Michael and Beto all carry a Tennessee Colony address under three different ZIP codes, and Coffield and Michael sit three street numbers apart on the same road:

Unit	Address	City and ZIP
H.H. Coffield	2661 FM 2054	Tennessee Colony, TX 75884
Mark W. Michael	2664 FM 2054	Tennessee Colony, TX 75886
George Beto	1391 FM 3328	Tennessee Colony, TX 75880

An envelope addressed to 2664 instead of 2661, or to 75886 instead of 75884, does not look wrong to anyone handling it. It arrives at a different prison. Since personal mail goes to Dallas, this now only bites on the categories that still travel to the unit, and those are exactly the items you least want misdirected.

What Still Goes to Tennessee Colony

These are the exceptions, and they go to the unit’s own address:

• Legal mail and special mail
• Media correspondence
• Business and agency correspondence
• Packages
• Publisher-direct books and magazines
• Government checks

H.H. Coffield Unit
[Full First and Last Name] [TDCJ Number]
2661 FM 2054
Tennessee Colony, TX 75884

Anything that needs his signature goes to the unit addressed care of the Law Library.

Books are a special case. TDCJ’s own page contradicts itself: the prose says books and magazines go to the unit, while the routing table further down the same page lists books under digital mail. Before sending a book, confirm on (903) 928-2211, and check you are calling Coffield and not Michael on 928-2311.

What is consistent is the publisher-direct expectation: books and publications should come from a publisher or an established retailer, not from a private individual, and those shipments go to the unit.

Photos follow letters to Dallas, not to Tennessee Colony. They are scanned in color and land on his tablet with everything else.

If the printing and posting is the part that gets in the way, Pigeonly is another way to do it. You upload a letter or photos from your phone and we print and mail them under that prison’s mail rules, so there is no printer, no stamps and no trip to the post office. It sits alongside the official postal route above and does not replace it, and the Dallas address is still where the letter physically goes.