SC DJJ warns of overcrowding as Richland County looks to close juvenile jail

The sign outside the Department of Juvenile Justice's building on Broad River Road. (File/Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

COLUMBIA — State juvenile justice officials are worried about worsening overcrowding in their facilities as Richland County considers closing the juvenile wing of its jail.

During a meeting Tuesday, a panel of three Richland County Council members voted unanimously to start sending youth offenders to a state-run detention center instead of the local jail, which every county in the state but Charleston already does.

The proposal still needs the full council’s approval. But council members praised the idea as a way of lessening the load on officers in a jail facing scrutiny from state and federal officials.

At the same time, the move could make a bad situation worse for the Department of Juvenile Justice, agency director Eden Hendrick told reporters Wednesday.

“We are still over capacity almost every day,” Hendrick said. “This will just be an additional amount of youth coming to our detention facility that we will have to deal with.”

‘Just a Band-Aid’

As of Wednesday, 92 youths between ages 12 and 17 were at the state detention center, 20 more than its maximum capacity, Hendrick said.

That number is likely to increase in the summer months, when children are out of school, she said.

Last year, the department had as many as 134 teens in its detention center, according to numbers the department gave a legislative budget-writing committee.

The Richland County jail is currently holding 27 youth who would end up in the detention center if that part of the jail closed, jail director Crayman Harvey told council members Tuesday.

In a facility with troubled, potentially violent youth, having too many teenagers in one place can become dangerous, particularly when some don’t get along, Hendrick said. The facility has had as many as 30 teens in units meant for 12 in an attempt to keep certain people separated, she said.

“It’s not as simple as, all of these kids can just go somewhere together,” Hendrick said.

Everything — including showering, sleeping and getting medical treatment — becomes more difficult when the facility has more youth than it was intended to hold, Hendrick said. For instance, without enough classroom space to teach all the teenagers in the building at the same time, agency officials are considering putting a temporary classroom on top of the outdoor sports court or adding more classes in the evenings.

“We’re trying to be as creative as we can,” Hendrick said. “But the bottom line is, anything we do right now is just a Band-Aid.”

What the agency really needs is a new detention center, she said.

“Even if we had half the population, the building’s still not adequate for what we need,” Hendrick said.

She would like to lease the unused Greenville juvenile jail, but plans for that are not yet set. And while the department has completed a master plan, the $20 million the Senate proposed to implement it is up for negotiations when legislators return to finish the budget in June.

In the meantime, the department is focusing on renovations to the building it has now and encouraging law enforcement officers and judges to send fewer youth to the detention center. Instead, teenagers charged with less serious crimes could go home with an ankle monitor or get treatment elsewhere, Hendrick said.

“But they’re just recommendations,” Hendrick said. “It’s ultimately up to the family court.”

County juvenile jails

Since the Greenville jail closed its juvenile wing in 2022, Charleston would be the only county in the state to detain youth in its own facility. The Charleston County Sheriff’s Department, which runs the jail, is not considering closing its juvenile detention facility, which it opened in 2022, a spokesperson told the SC Daily Gazette on Wednesday.

But Hendrick still worries, she said. Legally, counties do not have to house teenagers awaiting trial. That responsibility falls on the juvenile justice department.

Like Richland County, Charleston County’s jail is under investigation by the federal Department of Justice over alleged civil rights violations. Both investigations are focused on the adult facilities.

In Richland County’s case, though, staffing the juvenile wing is taking resources the county could dedicate to fixing up the more problematic side of the jail, where it detains adults, said County Administrator Leonardo Brown.

“We’re picking up ancillary duties that are not our charge, which is leading to additional stress on our system that we’re responsible for,” Brown told council members Tuesday.

Closing the juvenile wing would free up 14 officers to fill gaps on the adult side. That could particularly help in areas like transportation and intake, which remain understaffed, Harvey said.

He did not give exact numbers on how many officers the jail needs to hire, and a county spokesperson did not provide specific numbers Wednesday. In an update last March, Harvey told council members the jail had about half of the staff it needed.

Detention officers have been scarce nationwide.

Greenville County cited staffing as its reason for closing the juvenile detention wing in 2022. Initially, the county was supposed to close its jail for 90 days, but it has yet to reopen.

The Department of Juvenile Justice is struggling to hire enough people, too. In March, the department needed to hire 145 officers, accounting for about one-third of the total officers it needs to be fully staffed across facilities, spokesperson Michelle Foster said at the time.

“We are completely understaffed for what we have already,” Hendrick said Wednesday.

For Richland County, the set-up seems ideal, council members said Tuesday. The jail is in the midst of major renovations after years of state inspectors pointing out dozens of violations to the minimum standards for jails. At one point, officials threatened to take over or shut down the jail if conditions didn’t improve.

Since then, the county has made major strides, the corrections department wrote in a letter to the county that Brown shared Tuesday. Putting more resources into the adult part of the jail could only help that effort, council members said.

“I’m trying to think of any negatives, but I haven’t come across any,” Councilwoman Cheryl English said Tuesday.

The change would come at a cost to the county: Sending youth to state facilities requires $50 per youth per day.

That’s only a fraction of the actual cost of housing a teenager, Hendrick said. In the best scenarios, the department estimates the cost between $350 and $400 per person per day, she said. That doesn’t account for costs like maintenance issues in the building.

The fee is set by state law, meaning it would be up to legislators to change it. Instead of pushing for an increase, the department has been focused on more immediate concerns, such as reducing the number of children in custody, Hendrick said.

Plus, while larger cities and counties might be able to afford the cost, it can put a strain on smaller communities, Hendrick said. In the case that several youths had to go to a detention facility at once, she worried a higher fee might break the bank for places with a smaller tax base.

“We want to be mindful of that,” Hendrick said.

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