COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Richland County jail plans to close their juvenile wing, meaning those under 18 will now be taken to the SC Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ).
“We can barely staff the detention facility for what we already have, so having these extra youth there is not going to be easy,” Eden Hendrick said.
Hendrick is the director of the department of juvenile justice, she says the facility is not equipped to house more juveniles.
"Our population goes up during the summer and so as of this morning, we had 116 youth. We're slated to have 72 so that's quite a lot. Then if you add in the Alvin S Gelnn youth, their average juvenile population is between 20 and 30, maybe like average 22 or 25. If you add that on top of the youth we already have that's very, very difficult for us to function in a building that is only meant to house really 72 youth for no period longer than maybe 60 to 90 days,” she said.
In May, the initial approval was given by the detention center ad hoc committee who voted in favor of a recommendation by jail officials. The measure now moves to the full Richland County Council for consideration which will be taken up Tuesday night.
In a statement to News 19, Richland County says if passed the county would pay a per diem to the SC DJJ to detain juvenile inmates, in accordance with state law.
“$50 a day is not at all sufficient to meet our needs. If you have a turn key ready facility without needing improvements or anything it still cost 30 350 to $400 a day to just provide the services and the people for detention. not even considering the buildings,” Hendrick said.
DJJ says they will be responsible for the entire state’s youth and the population from Alvin S Glenn. They say this comes with no additional funding or staffing.
“We have to increase and compensate and figure out how to increase medical treatment, food, clinical, religious, education. We don't have a lot of classroom space, recreation space. We were using an electric closet as like a game room. We've had to stop that because we had needed extra offices. That facility only has two outside sports courts. There's no gym, and so the only recreation that's available are two outside areas which is very hot during the summer. The building just really was not designed for long term detention," Hendrick said.
The agency has developed a master plan to give legislatures a better idea of the funding and improvements the facility needs.
“The way the plan is designed that if we do the new detention facility, it would come along with a new infirmary, central intake, kitchen, laundry facility that can be used by all of the other facilities that we would like to eventually build on that location or better in the midlands already. It would just be a way to help all of our facilities if we were able to do it as designed,” Hendrick said.
If approved and funded, the agency says this plan will benefit not only the facility but the youth as well.
“The master plan is like a dream plan, what would really need for the agency to move forward and to move into this century and reform our juvenile justice system but we're not focused on that yet, until that is funded, we're more focused on dealing with what we have to deal with now and keeping everyone safe as much as we can now,” Hendrick said.