University. Robyn Ross of the Texas Observer stated that a person could, in fewer than 10 minutes, cross the cemetery by foot. Ross described the cemetery grounds as having been "neatly maintained". During the 1980s and 1990s the headstones that were manufactured were concrete crosses. These crosses only have prison ID numbers and dates of death. There are other headstones which also include the names of the prisoners and the dates of birth. Headstones of death row prisoners have prison numbers with the beginning “999”, a state designation for a death row inmate, or they have the letters "EX" or "X". Because of soil shifts, some graves have collapsed. As of 2014, over half of the graves in the prison are from after 1979. Wilson stated that this is because of an increase in imprisonment in the 1980s and 1990s. Operations Of about 450 annual deaths that occur in the Texas prison system, about 100 prisoners are buried at the cemetery, and each burial has a cost of about $2,000. The State of Texas covers the costs of funerals at Joe Byrd. Usually the funerals at the cemetery are held on Thursdays. In order to allow families of executed prisoners to make a single trip to Huntsville instead of two separate trips, the burial of an executed prisoner not claimed by the family is usually done the day after his or her execution. Chaplain David Collier Sr., a chaplain in Huntsville, stated in 2014 that the most common reason why the families do not pick up the bodies is because they are unable to afford doing a burial themselves, so they often schedule a funeral in Huntsville and allow the state to bury the body. On many occasions, the prisoner's relatives do not attend the funeral. The TDCJ refers to a burial with no family members present as a "direct". Collier stated that some family members in other parts of Texas cannot afford to travel to Huntsville, and sometimes the state cannot locate family members. Prisoners working as the cemetery grounds crew stand witness in burials without family members or friends of the deceased. In the cases of a prisoner who died in the Huntsville Unit, the prisoners at the funeral may know him, but if the prisoner died elsewhere, the prisoners at the funeral will often not know the prisoner. Wilson stated that about 2% of the people buried