Alvin S Glenn Detention Center

Reports

• DOJ-CRIPA1 Jan 2025

  1. ASGDC fails to provide an adequate way for incarcerated persons to report and avoid danger ... 26 After an extensive investigation of the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center (ASGDC or Jail) in Richland County, South Carolina, the Department of Justice (DOJ) finds reasonable cause to believe that ASGDC violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution by failing to protect incarcerated people from an unreasonable risk of violence and harm from other incarcerated people. Specifically, we found that ASGDC fails to provide reasonable safety and to protect incarcerated people from harm by physical violence from other incarcerated people, including assaults with weapons, assaults by multiple people on single victims, and sexual assaults, which often result in hospitalization or death. For years, people incarcerated at ASGDC have been endangered due to systemic problems that have enabled severe violence and avoidable harm to persist. There were at least 60 stabbings in the Jail in 2023. Gangs frequently prey on incarcerated people. Weapons, drugs, and contraband cell phones are commonplace and facilitate gang control and violence in the Jail. When violence occurs or contraband is found, ASGDC often fails to respond with proper investigations and appropriate discipline to enforce Jail rules. Our investigation found that a lack of sufficient staff, a deteriorating facility, and systemic lapses in security operations, such as deficient prisoner supervision, inadequate internal investigations, and lax contraband prevention, result in an ongoing failure to adequately protect incarcerated people from violence. These factors, and others detailed in the report, are known to ASGDC leadership and contribute to our finding of unconstitutional conditions. This report explains the scope of our investigation and provides background information about the Jail. The report then describes the constitutional violations that we found to exist in the Jail, including the legal framework applied, the unacceptable conditions identified, and the deficient practices that led to

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