Prison News | South Carolina

• Education & Rehabilitation
• Executions, Death Row, & the Death Penalty
• Gangs in Prison
• Health & Medical Treatment
• Prison Classification, Placement, and Release
• Prison Conditions & Corruption
• Prison Life & Prison Culture
• Riots, Lockdowns & Escapes
• Suicides in Prison
• Workplace & Industry News and Science & Tech

Education & Rehabilitation

• A look at how South Carolina uses electronic monitoring to track released offenders
  
  COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina relies on electronic monitoring to keep track of hundreds of offenders after they are released from prison. Through the Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services, the state contracts with two ......[more]
  Associated Press, Sunday, July 28, 2013
  
  

Executions, Death Row & the Death Penalty

• South Carolina Man Who Killed His Five Children Sentenced to Death
  
  CHARLESTON, S.C - A South Carolina jury sentenced a man to death on Thursday after convicting him of murdering his five young children at their mobile home in 2014 before driving their decomposing bodies through several states and dumping them in Alabama....[more]
  voanews.com, Thursday, June 13, 2019
  
  

Gangs in Prison

Health & Medical Treatment

• SC prisons want mental health ruling reconsidered
  
  COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina prison officials are telling a judge why he should reconsider a ruling over how to deal with inmates' mental health treatment.

  Circuit Judge Michael Baxley has scheduled a hearing for Friday on the request by the state Department of Corrections....[more]

  Associated Press, Friday, March 28, 2014
  
  
• South Carolina to Stop Separating HIV Inmates
  
  (CNN) -- The South Carolina Department of Corrections plans to stop separating HIV-infected inmates from its general prison population, the department announced Tuesday. South Carolina and Alabama currently are the only two states that have ......[more]
  CNN Wire, Wednesday, July 10, 2013
  
  

Prison Classification, Placement, & Release

• Head of SC prisons system retiring
  
  COLUMBIA — The man who has led South Carolina's prisons agency for three years is retiring at the end of next month, ending decades of public service, Gov. Nikki Haley said Friday....[more]
  Associated Press, Friday, August 23, 2013
  
  

Prison Conditions & Corruption

• 3 Arrested in South Carolina Prison Contraband Operation
  
  Contraband valued at $35,000 was confiscated when the South Carolina Department of Corrections busted a smuggling operation...[more]
  U.S. News, Friday, January 10, 2020
  
  
• Why 4 Boys In South Carolina Have Been Shackled In Solitary Confinement For 6 Weeks
  
  A thirty minute drive from Spring Valley High School, where Officer Ben Fields slammed and dragged a teenage girl out of her desk, several young boys have been shackled and locked in solitary confinement for close to six weeks with little to no human contact....[more]
  ThinkProgress, Thursday, October 29, 2015
  
  
• SC jail's crowding cuts options, risks violence
  
  PICKENS, S.C. (AP) — The spread of methamphetamine and the resulting increase in arrests have packed the Pickens County jail with twice the number of inmates than its Corrections Department-rated capacity....[more]
  Associated Press, Sunday, June 8, 2014
  
  
• 3 workers at medium-security SC prison fired after arrest on charges they had sex with inmates
  
  KERSHAW, S.C. (AP) - Three employees at a medium-security South Carolina men's prison have been fired after their arrests on charges of sexual misconduct with inmates....[more]
  Associated Press, Friday, June 7, 2013
  
  

Prison Life & Culture

• Convicted killer launches online petition to gain Facebook access for inmates
  
  Frenchis Abraham doesn't cotton to the idea of the government interfering with his ability to keep up with family and friends on Facebook, and he's trying to rally people to oppose such intrusions by the state....[more]
  Post and Courier, Sunday, October 5, 2014
  
  
• Graying of SC prisons will cost state’s taxpayers
  
  An inmate at Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution for women keeps a wheelchair tucked away in the corner of her small, cinder-block cell.

  She has a walker, too.

  The wheelchair and walker are just two of the signs of the exploding population of aging inmates in South Carolina’s prisons.

  Another sign? The dollar sign, as in the increasing cost that S.C. taxpayers will have to pay to care for those aging inmates....[more]

  Sun-News, Sunday, August 24, 2014
  
  
• Rapper DMX arrested on marijuana charge in S. Carolina
  
  (Reuters) - Rapper DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was arrested on Tuesday in South Carolina and charged with possession of marijuana, two days before he was due in court on a drunk driving charge....[more]
  Reuters News, Wednesday, August 21, 2013
  
  

Riots, Lockdowns & Escapes

• Video shows man left to die in South Carolina prison yard
  
  COLUMBIA, S.C. — It was New Year's Eve 2017 and Allen "AJ" Capers, 32, was lying in a pool of blood outside a cell at South Carolina's Turbeville prison. He had been stabbed several times by two fellow inmates, according to prison incident reports....[more]
  NBC News, Thursday, April 18, 2019
  
  
• Former SC corrections officer charged with giving inmates key impressions for an escape
  
  SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) - A former South Carolina prison guard is accused of providing inmates key impressions to help them escape. The state Department of Corrections says 24-year-old Jeffrey Miller of Enoree was charged Wednesday with two ......[more]
  Associated Press, Thursday, August 1, 2013
  
  
• Disturbance at state prison in Jasper County; tear gas used to get inmates back to cells
  
  RIDGELAND, S.C. (AP) - Guards at a medium-security state prison in Jasper County had to briefly abandon a wing of the facility after inmates caused a disturbance....[more]
  Associated Press, Tuesday, June 4, 2013
  
  

Suicides in Prison

Workplace & Industry News, and Science & Tech News

• EEOC Challenges Three Companies for Inappropriate Use of Criminal Records in Employment Decisions
  
  Last month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought formal charges against two employers for policies that resulted in individuals with certain criminal convictions being fired or automatically screened out as potential employees. On June 11, the EEOC filed suits against a BMW manufacturing facility in South Carolina and Dolgencorp, d.b.a. Dollar General, a national discount retailer based in Tennessee. In a third case, the agency announced on June 28 that it had reached a conciliation agreement with trucking company J.B. Hunt Transport to settle a discrimination charge....[more]
  Council for State Governments, Friday, July 26, 2013