COLUMBIA, S.C. — A new criminal investigation is underway after two detainees died of drug overdoses at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in less than a week.
Given this news, News19 spoke with other jail officials across the Midlands about how they're working to prevent drug-related deaths.
According to the South Carolina Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS), drug overdoses are a problem in corrections facilities nationwide, and they need to be taken seriously.
Jail officials in Newberry and Kershaw counties said they haven't seen a deadly overdose at their facility in recent months.
"It's been a while since we've had anybody overdose in the population after they've been booked," Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster said.
Foster said when overdoses happen in Newberry, it's often right before arrest or in the booking process. However, as far as curbing these overdoses, jail leaders said it begins with deterring contraband.
"New technology is getting put into many jails across the state, thanks to a grant through the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), with a body scanner that will certainly help us find things on inmate workers or anybody else that comes into the jail," Foster said.
Kershaw County Administrator Danny Templar, who manages the Kershaw County jail, said this year he budgeted for more money to help retain and attract more corrections officers to monitor said contraband.
"A robust intake process, searching procedures, leaving no stone unturned," Templar said.
Sara Goldsby, director of DAODAS, said the drugs on the market now are much deadlier than they were just five years ago.
"It's really just been in the last year or two years that we've seen all of the illicit drugs really become so much a risk for overdose," Goldsby said.
Naxolone and Narcan are emergency medicines used to reverse the effects of suspected opioid overdoses. So far this year, DAODAS has sent over 5,800 naloxone kits to corrections settings statewide.
Since its installation at the Lexington County jail in May of 2023, the officials said that their Narcan machine had dispensed just over 600 units.