SC agency reopens Upstate juvenile detention center, aiming to reduce overcrowding

Part of the Greenville County jail has reopened to juvenile offenders, with the goal of keeping Upstate youth closer to home and reducing overcrowding at the main Columbia detention center, according to the state Department of Juvenile Justice.

Reopening the Greenville juvenile wing, which closed due to staffing issues in March 2022, will “provide much-needed relief” to the agency’s frequently overcrowded main detention center in Columbia, DJJ said in a news release.

The number of teens at the Columbia facility varies, but the center regularly houses as many as 120 youth, far more than the 72 it was built to handle, agency director Eden Hendrick has said.

The Greenville detention center, when fully staffed, will hold up to 40 children ages 13 and older. The agency relocated four teens there from the Columbia center last week, according to the agency.

The plan is to gradually move any detained youth who have family in Greenville or Pickens counties out of Columbia and into the 22,000-square-foot Greenville facility, where they can be closer to home. Then, in July, the agency expects to start accepting any new admissions to the facility of youth from those two counties.

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If the center still has space, DJJ will open admissions to other parts of the Upstate, according to the news release.

Along with relieving overcrowding in Columbia, law enforcement won’t have to transport the teens long distances to and from court appearances, since they will be housed nearby, the agency said. Fewer children means the agency also can start long-overdue renovations to the Columbia detention center.

DJJ won’t operate the Greenville juvenile wing directly.

Instead, the agency contracted with Wayne Halfway House, a Tennessee-based nonprofit, to run the facility. How much the nonprofit will receive depends on the number of youth and staff needed to supervise them.

The maximum cost is estimated at $10 million over two years, agency spokeswoman Michelle Foster said in an email. That’s on top of the $657,930 the department will pay Greenville County annually for use of its jail over the next five years, she said.

Bill requires SC counties pay more to jail teens at DJJ. It could lead to fewer arrests.

Greenville County closed the juvenile facility three years ago because it was struggling to hire enough officers for its adult wing.

Overcrowding at DJJ worsened again last year when Richland County, facing a U.S. Department of Justice investigation, also moved its juveniles in custody to the state agency’s facility to focus on staffing the adult side of its jail.

That closure sent 45 more children to the state’s detention center and “only compounded this already bad situation,” Hendrick said in a letter to the Department of Administration asking to reopen the Greenville detention center.

Charleston is the only South Carolina county that still operates its own juvenile detention center. Most opt to pay the Department of Juvenile Justice $50 per youth per day to house any pre-teens and teenagers arrested in their area.

In the state budget starting July 1, legislators added a charge of $125 per child per day for the first 25 days they spend at the facility. A trio of state senators introduced the measure to help offset renovating and maintenance costs and to encourage local governments to reduce overcrowding by making fewer youth arrests.