South Carolina has an obligation to keep prisoners safe from violence

So now seven inmates have been killed and 22 more injured so severely that they needed hospitalization as a result of inmate-on-inmate violence at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville (“Deadly SC prison riot injured 22 inmates, not 17, agency says”).

Standing alone, this would be a tragedy. Sadly, however, it is part of a pattern of increasing violence in recent years in S.C. prisons.

In one incident last year, four inmates were killed at Kirkland Correctional in Columbia.

In fact, the total number of inmates killed in S.C. prisons has increased in each of the past three years.

And the rates of assaults on both inmates and correctional officers have skyrocketed in recent years.

I call on our governor and our Legislature to investigate this pattern of increasing violence and death and to take steps to make sure it does not continue.

I suspect this may mean hiring additional employees at our prisons and increasing their pay and benefits.

The United States incarcerates people at one of the highest rates in the world, and almost all of those people will be released one day. We owe it to those inmates to make sure that prisoners are safe from physical violence while they are incarcerated.

I often hear political leaders tout their Christianity when running for office. Jesus told us that we would be judged by how we care for the least of our brothers and sisters and then specifically listed those in prison as among the least of these.

I call upon the leaders of this state to live their faith and to take steps to make sure our brothers and sisters who are in prison are safe from harm.

The State publishes a cross section of the letters we receive from South Carolinians in order to provide a forum for our community and also to allow our community to get a good look at itself, for good or bad. The letters represent the views of the letter writers, not necessarily of The State.

This story was originally published April 18, 2018 at 1:35 PM with the headline "South Carolina has an obligation to keep prisoners safe from violence."