South Carolina jail plagued by rapes, assaults and security shortfalls, a federal report says

COLUMBIA, S,C. (AP) — Federal investigators found in a scathing report this week that a large jail in South Carolina vastly underreports the violence occurring behind its walls and lets dozens of inmates go unsupervised for so long that at least two killings of prisoners were reported to jail staff from outside callers. The U.S. Department of Justice told the jail in Richland County, which includes South Carolina's capital of Columbia, that it must improve conditions as soon as possible — repairing holes in walls, fixing locks that don't lock at all and fixing broken light fixtures that otherwise might be turned into weapons. The jail also must stop the flow of contraband, it said. Cellphones are used to orchestrate gang beatings even as inmates are moved from one wing to another for safety. Drugs brought into the facility caused eight prisoners to overdose in two months last year, according to the report released Wednesday by federal investigators. The 36-page report is filled with stunning details and damning facts. Named the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, for a guard killed by inmates during an escape attempt in 2000, the jail has more openings for guards than the current number of actual officers, the report said. It added that hours go by without a single employee checking on jail wings and keys have gone unaccounted for. According to the report, the jail has four times as many assaults as the Miami-Dade jail even though the south Florida jail has four times as many inmates. It also said a private company that helps with security has hired people with felony convictions. The report also details stories about people charged but not convicted of crimes and waiting in jail for their trials. One inmate who has been at the jail for three years was beaten and stabbed and the jail took no action until his mother called them two days later, the report said. It added he was beaten again and a guard only responded when other prisoners reported he was bleeding. He was attacked a third time by four inmates and then a fourth time by seven prisoners only receiving help when an inmate called the central command center and reported him bleeding and crying, the report indicated. The report said on two occasions jail officials only learned of inmate killings from outsider callers: Once, someone left a message with the jail director that an inmate was dead in a pool of blood. A second time, a jail nurse got a call from someone outside who watched the killing on Facebook Live, according to the report. “Individuals who are charged with a crime and detained at Alvin S. Glenn face very real possibilities of being stabbed, raped and beaten before they ever see a courtroom. Such conditions violates the U.S. Constitution," U.S. Attorney Adair Boroughs said. Richland County officials didn't respond to messages seeking comment. Boroughs noted the county began repairs on the jail and started overhauling procedures and staffing after the investigation was announced more than a year ago. She urged them to keep up the work or the federal government would file suit. The report said criminal conduct in the jail often goes unpunished. “We found multiple, multiple incidents where crime scenes were cleaned up by inmates before the sheriff's office was ever notified — or perhaps they were never notified,” Boroughs said at a news conference. The federal government continues to investigate the jail in Charleston County and has a court order against the Department of Juvenile Justice prisons in the state. In all, more than a dozen jails and prisons across the U.S. are under federal investigations or court orders. According to the report, an inmate told of being raped and genetic material found on his back matched another inmate. But it said there was no record of any further investigation being conducted. Another inmate threatened to commit suicide to get moved out of one unit where he reported a rape. In the next unit, he was raped again after he couldn't get a relative outside to pay $200 to the prisoner who attacked him, according to the report. The report has four pages of requirements for the jail. It said the jail needs to have at least one guard on each wing at all times and a second guard who walks between two wings. The jail also needs to stop requiring inmates to file grievances with an officer assigned to their unit. The jail also needs to do full searches of all employees for contraband, the report advised, adding workers were bringing illegal items into the prison in lunch coolers and under food containers. "Corrections officers have a duty to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners, for being violently assaulted in prison is simply not part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses against society," the investigators wrote in their report.