$5,000 bonuses and a fresh coat of paint: Inside the plan to fix the Richland County jail
After multiple deaths, troubling inspection reports and a riot, the Richland County administration has submitted a plan to to overhaul the troubled Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center to the state Department of Corrections.
The 180-page report outlines an extensive plan to raise wages, update policies and modernize the jail to improve conditions, sanitation and safety for inmates and staff.
“All of these things are focused efforts that we are taking to address the concerns at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center,” county administrator Leonardo Brown said at a press conference Wednesday.
Among the highlights is a 25% increase in starting pay for detention center officers, along with a slew of bonuses, stipends and cash incentives for staying on the job and receiving additional training; a $2.5 million plan to provide 448 new locks on cell doors; the construction of a new visiting area for attorneys and their clients; and more than $600,000 in improvements to the facility.
The county was given a deadline of April 18 to submit a remedial action plan to the South Carolina Department of Corrections following several years of negative inspection reports from the state.
The county provided its plan to the Department of Corrections ahead of deadline and while many of the improvements were already underway, Brown said. The Department of Corrections had not finished reviewing the plan Thursday afternoon, department spokesperson Chrysti Shain said.
“We have to review it and assess what they sent us to see if the plan is viable and addresses the concerns we outlined,” Shain told The State.
While the Department of Corrections does not have statutory power to fine either Richland County or the jail, Shain said that department would work with the county to develop a timeline to implement its plan or make any adjustments.
Brown said that the plan as well as the numerous ad hoc County Council meetings about the jail demonstrated that Richland County “can remain accountable and stay the course.”
A cornerstone of the plan is a drive to fill the 105 vacant positions, more than half of the jail’s staff, with a “full-time dedicated recruiter,” “on-the-spot hiring” and an increasingly competitive wage.
Understaffing has often been placed at the heart of the jail’s problems, but the facility still faces considerable organizational hurdles, including an unfilled jail director position. At the press conference, Brown said that while they did not have a shortlist, the administration had 25 director candidates and were hoping to have filled the position within 60 days.
Over half of the detention center officer positions are currently vacant, according to one document included in the packet.
Starting salaries at the facility have been raised to $40,000 from $32,000. Employees also will have an opportunity to earn $5,000 in bonuses across five installments in their first year if they meet certain benchmarks, including successfully complete training from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy.
Employees to who refer people to jobs can also receive up to $1,000 if the the person they referred is hired and stays at the job for 12 months.
Watch commanders and managers, who are exempt from overtime pay, are being offered stipends of up to $2,000 per month. “Additional hours are essential during these temporary extraordinary circumstances,” reads a sample copy of the stipend agreement included in the packet submitted to the Department of Corrections.
The county administration has also requested a staffing review be conducted by the South Carolina Association of Counties, which describes itself as a non-partisan, nonprofit organization that advocates for county governments.
The plan also followed a consent order with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, which found multiple consecutive violations of cleanliness and food storage standards, according to an inspection report included in the packet.
The county administration, Brown wrote, was not even aware of the consent order; it was brought to his attention by the Department of Corrections. The previous jail director, Tyrell Cato, who was fired after it was found that he did not disclose that he had been fired from his previous job in Kershaw County for sexual harassment, never informed anyone about the consent order, according to Brown.
“Mr. Cato was not given authority by the County Administrator nor the Richland County Council to sign the Consent Order on behalf of Richland County,” Brown wrote.
In additional to an overhaul of the jail’s kitchen, which Brown said was already underway, the plan outlined roughly $3 million in improvements to other facilities and housing units.
The majority of that spending will go toward a roughly $2.5 million plan to fix cell doors and outfit new, tamper-proof Willo Wedge doors that feature “Gripper” technology, which can shred items stuffed into the lock. A quote provided by Willo indicates that the retrofit will begin in August and will go through May 2024.
Individual housing units, or pods, will need to be unoccupied while the doors and locks are being replaced.
The packet also includes a $97,450 quote for renovating the jail’s lobby area and a $438,865 quote for a thorough restoration of the housing unit designated “Yankee.” Among the planned renovations to the housing unit, which is connected to the recently closed Special Housing Unit, are replacing ceiling tiles, installing wire mesh on the second floor and repainting “every paintable surface in the dorm,” including repainting basketball markings in the recreation area.
Improving the facilities is about more than appearances, interim jail director Crayman Harvey told a recent ad hoc meeting of the Richland County Council. He hopes that improving working conditions will attract more desirable job candidates to the jail, leading to a change in the facility’s culture.
“We believe that our improvement efforts will help foster a more safe and secure environment within the facility,” Brown wrote in a letter to the director of Compliance, Standards and Inspections at the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
This story was originally published April 20, 2023 at 9:38 AM.