Cummins housed Arkansas's male death row until 1986, when it was transferred first to the Tucker Maximum Security Unit.

[12] In 1902 the State of Arkansas purchased about 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) of land for $140,000 ($4,930,000 when adjusted for inflation) to build the Cummins Unit.

Beginning in 1936, white male prisoners with disciplinary problems were housed at Cummins.

[19] In 1951 white female prisoners were moved from the Arkansas State Farm for Women to Cummins.

[20] In 1970 some prisoners asking for segregated housing started a riot, leading to an intervention by state police.

[25] In 2000 Arkansas's first lethal electrified fence, built with inmate labor, opened at the Cummins Unit.

[17] In 1968, Tom Murton alleged that three human skeletons found on the farm were the remains of inmates who had been subjected to torture, prompting a publicized investigation which found "a prison hospital served as torture chamber and a doctor as chief tormentor.

"[27] The revelations included allegations of electrical devices connected to the genitalia of inmates.

The Arkansas State Penitentiary System at that time had already been found to have held inmates at the Cummins Unit under conditions rising to the level of unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment, in cases tried by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, among others.

Certain characteristics of the Arkansas prison system serve to distinguish it from most other penal institutions in this country.

First, it has very few paid employees; armed trusties ["trusted" inmates, according to the source] guard rank and file inmates and trusties perform other tasks usually and more properly performed by civilian or "free world" personnel.

Second, convicts not in isolation are confined when not working, and are required to sleep at night in open dormitory type barracks in which rows of beds are arranged side by side; there are large numbers of men in each barracks.

[9] Children (dependents of correctional staff) living on the prison property are zoned to the Dumas School District.

[41] In fiscal year 2010 the Arkansas Department of Correction spent $81,691 on the fire station.

[40] As of 2006, the Cummins Unit has the largest farming operation in the Arkansas Department of Correction system.

[5] Cummins previously housed the Special Management Barracks, a unit for prisoners with counseling and mental health requirements.

At night, the two free world employees patrolled the central corridor but did not venture into the barrack units.

[47] Education in the Cummins Unit began in 1968, when the Gould School District started a night program.

Jackson had become friends with the assistant warden of Ramsey prison farm at the time, T. Don Hutto.

When Hutto became Arkansas commissioner of corrections in 1971, their friendship provided Jackson with access to prisoners resulting in numerous publications.

In 2010, Jackson's photo collection from the Cummins Unit was exhibited at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York and at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.