COLUMBIA, S.C. — In an exclusive tour of the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center this month, News19 saw renovations that included new plumbing, new measures to keep correctional officers safer, and a new locking system.
News19 went behind the razor wire fence and into the behavioral management unit alongside Richland County Administrator Leonardo Brown and Jail Director Crayman Harvey to look at what the county says is more than $3 million in improvements.
"When we started this project we were averaging roughly somewhere about 725 to 740 detainees, which is still a significant number," Brown said. "Since that time our numbers are up over 250 additional detainees."
On average, there are more than 1,100 detainees at the jail daily. No detainees were in the behavioral management unit during our visit as it was undergoing upgrades. According to the county, it went back online on December 8th and is the first of 18 housing units to be renovated, and there will be one guard for every 56 detainees.
Director Harvey said the need to separate detainees is a critical safety issue.
"You have to ensure that everybody is in a housing unit that's appropriate for their charge; the violent offender has to be separated from the nonviolent," he said. "I can't have a person who came in here for public disorderly conduct and a person who has been charged with murder in the same housing unit. But when you're overpopulated, and when you have units that are not where they need to be of the standard or whenever, you come to a point to where you're putting people together that should not be together."
The U.S. Department of Justice recently launched an investigation into the jail and, in doing so, said the facility has failed to keep inmates safe after stabbings, attempted escapes, and deaths.
Richland jail officials said today's detainees have challenges that didn't exist when Alvin S. Glenn was built 30 years ago.
"Mental health is not something that jails thought that they would have to manage at this level," Brown said. "I think there's statistics that say that the largest institutions of mental health, are detention centers are jails or prisons, that should not be the case. But I can't change that. What I can try to do is provide an opportunity and a space for our folks to learn how to better deal with it."
Fifth Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson, who leads the agency that prosecutes the people sent to jail, said his office has cleared 11,000 cases this year.
"COVID-19 put us in a place where before, cases were taking a year to 18 months to get to trial. They are now taking two to two-and-a-half years," Gipson said. "Those tend to be the cases that we're talking about; they tend to be the most violent cases. Because those are the ones that require additional testing, that require the ballistics testing, that require DNA testing."
As the solicitor's office works to clear the docket, the county said they'll continue working to improve conditions for those waiting for their day in court.
"What we've done at each level is we've made an adjustment where there was a recommendation, where there was a solution provided, we've implemented it."
The Richland County jail is not the only state facility under a Department of Justice Investigation. The Charleston County Jail is also being investigated for its medical and mental health treatment of inmates, as well as the use of solitary confinement.