Richland County doesn’t want you to read a new report on its jails. Why you should | Opinion
A devastating 36-page report by the U.S. Department of Justice on the dangerous, inhumane and unconstitutional conditions of Richland County’s jails should be required reading for anyone who lives or works here. Why? Because we’re all one bad mistake or misunderstanding from a jail stay, because government exists to protect people in its care and because it’s unbelievable how horrific the situation and inept the people in charge have been for so long. It’s jaw-dropping.
Maybe it all works as a deterrent because if the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center isn’t the last place on Earth you’d want to visit, it’s certainly the last place in Richland County you’d want to end up. County and jail officials have known about violent, unsafe conditions for years and have spent $33 million over 10 projects to address a situation that should not have been allowed to deteriorate as it did.
Don’t let them downplay the report or say they are close to fixing all of this.
The Justice Department’s report lays bare the grim reality. They’re nowhere near fixing this. And the response from county officials — strong disagreement about what it called the Justice Department’s “outdated facts” and “misguided conclusions” — was embarrassing.
The report credits jail and county officials for recent actions to improve conditions and notes that other improvements are planned, including a revision of jail policies, but the report pointedly notes these problems have existed for years, many are unaddressed and some have worsened.
That’s a far cry from what Richland County Administrator Leonardo Brown told The State reporter Ted Clifford during a recent three-hour interview and tour of the renovated facility. Brown largely attributes the violence and damage to the jails to the detainees. But jail and county officials own this problem that could now subject them to a federal lawsuit, state intervention or oversight, or renewed discussion that the county’s sheriff should manage its jails.
Brown told Clifford there’s “a constant focus on the detention center, just like all other forms of county government.” But the detention center is not like other aspects of county government.
Consider just a few of the Justice Department’s findings, which are based on thousands of documents; hundreds of letters, emails and messages from people in jail, their families and their advocates; dozens of private 1-on-1 interviews with detainees, and repeated site visits.
Violence is pervasive. Alvin S. Glenn had almost four times as many stabbings in 2023 as the larger Miami-Dade County jail despite having less than a quarter of its population.
Yet the scope of the problem is unclear and you can’t trust the jail to keep accurate or complete records. One log listed 37 assaults with weapons among incarcerated people in 2023. Federal investigators found there were at least 60 stabbings in 2023, more than one a week.
A national survey in 2018 showed the average number of weapons that turned up in a year in prisons the size of Alvin S. Glenn was 34. Richland County’s jail had almost five times that — 150 — in 2023. Thirty-seven shanks, including two axes, were discovered in March 2024 alone.
The jail is woefully understaffed, in part because people don’t want to work where their lives are in danger. The jail needs 294 security officers, but it had only 128 in September and about 90 in November despite increasing starting salary from $32,219 in 2021 to $44,424 a year ago. The situation was so dire in 2022 that a jail official told county officials he “required assistance from the National Guard.” There were 77 officers then. Jail renovations will mean having to hire 362.
The current staff hasn’t done its job. The feds said only 1 in 6 of the required safety and security checks were done in January 2024, and fewer than half of those were within a required 30-minute window.
The feds also found that the jail classifies and houses inmates in a way that exposes them to unreasonable risks of violence; fails to follow its own policies, investigate issues or maintain the facility as it should to keep people safe; and has an outsized problem with contraband.
Investigators personally observed shortcomings in the employee screening process in April even though corrections officers had previously been caught sneaking in a cell phone, cell phone charger and tobacco in bags of chips; smuggled in baggies of ecstasy in a Styrofoam cup; and been busted bringing crack cocaine and oxycodone pills in food and drink containers.
Overall, investigators say they found “reasonable cause” to believe that the jail violates the Eight and Fourteenth amendments of the U.S. constitution by failing to protect its population “from an unreasonable risk of violence and harm from other incarcerated people.” So now what?
Richland County officials shouldn’t continue to downplay or dispute these findings. And they shouldn’t delay addressing them because the Trump administration will replace the Biden administration on Monday and the leaders and priorities of the Justice Department may shift. Either approach would be irresponsible. The problems at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center are clearer and more pressing than ever, as are some of the solutions: better oversight, better policies, a better staffing plan and better facility maintenance.
Such problems have been identified for years in state oversight reports and in lawsuits. A class action lawsuit filed on behalf of incarcerated people with mental illness and about a dozen other lawsuits alleging uncontrolled violence and substandard conditions have been filed since 2022. The latest was filed Monday, outlining details of a brutal physical and sexual assault in 2023.
How the Richland County Council responds to this report will be telling. If council members don’t hold a public hearing on this immediately to get more information and answers from Brown and jail officials and then demand additional regular updates in public, they aren’t doing their jobs.
If their only comments are behind closed doors, it will be clear they expect us all to ignore this fiasco and their failures. Don’t. That would be as unacceptable as a government that can’t run a jail system that’s safe for the detainees and the staff.
This story was originally published January 16, 2025 at 6:00 AM.