At least 777 deaths occurred in prisons, jails and detention centers across South Carolina from 2015 to 2021, according to a recent report from Incarceration Transparency South Carolina, a project supported by a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law.
The research provides a new comprehensive look at deaths behind bars in SC through public records from state-operated prisons and county jails run by local sheriff’s offices. The findings included demographic information, as well as some detail into how people died and their trial status.
“Our report gives us just a snapshot,” Madalyn Wasilczuk, assistant professor at the USC School of Law, said during an event presenting the report Thursday in Columbia. “It’s a starting point.”
Locally, Spartanburg County Detention Center had 18 deaths over the seven-year period, more than any other county jail in the state, according to the data in the report. Greenville County Detention Center had 13 deaths over the same timeframe.
Other Upstate jails that reported inmate deaths over that time period include Oconee County Detention Center with six deaths and Pickens County Detention Center with three deaths.
There are three prisons operated by the South Carolina Department of Corrections located in Greenville and Spartanburg Counties. Perry Correctional Institution, located in Greenville County, reported 29 deaths, while Tyger River Correctional Institution and Livesay Correctional Institution in Spartanburg County reported 18 and 5 deaths, respectively.
While prisons and local jails are required by state law to document deaths, the report notes information is incomplete. Students from USC School of Law who assisted with the research sent public records requests on deaths in custody to 196 agencies across the state, but received responses from only 161 of them.
“This information concerning deaths and institutions that we, the taxpayers support, should be more readily available,” Stuart Andrews, civil rights attorney with Burnette Shutt & McDaniel in Columbia, said at the event Thursday.
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Andrews said he hoped the report spurs legislative remedies to create better access to information on deaths in custody.
“The public shouldn't have to guess as to why people die in the custody of public officials,” Andrews said.
Findings detail trial status, cause of death
The report found that deaths in penal institutions across the state remained steady each year from 2015 to 2021, while still noting the impact the COVID-19 pandemic might have made in 2020. State prisons had their deadliest year in 2020, but county jails saw fewer deaths than years prior.
“The difference could be explained by fewer people being held pretrial because of the COVID-19 pandemic, while state prisons largely failed to release older people who were more susceptible to the virus,” the report noted.
Spartanburg County Detention Center has had at least one death every year since 2015, according to the data. The report does not account for 2022, but according to data from the Spartanburg County Coroner’s office, five people in-custody at the detention center died last year.
In October 2022, Lavell Najah Lane, 29, died at the detention center after being arrested for walking in the middle of Chesnee Highway, a traffic violation documented as “Pedestrian in the Street,” according to booking information from the facility. Lane’s family demanded answers, requesting body camera and security footage of his detainment.
Lane’s death is still under investigation by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
When reached by The Greenville News, the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office had no comment about the report or deaths in custody citing “potential pending litigation.”
While Greenville County Detention Center did not report deaths in custody in 2020 or 2021 according to the Incarceration Transparency report, a previous report from The Greenville News found the facility among the deadliest, with 27 deaths from 2008 to 2019.
According to Greenville County Governmental Affairs Coordinator, Bob Mihalic, six people died in custody at the Greenville Detention Center in 2022. Mihalic did not comment on the report or the jail's conditions.
According to the report, of the 41 deaths documented in Spartanburg facilities, 24 were reported as deaths by medical illness, while seven were reported as suicides, two as drug overdoses and three as accidental deaths. For Greenville facilities, 23 deaths were reported as medical, nine as suicides, four as drug overdoses and two were attributed to violence.
The Incarceration Transparency report broke down the trial status for deaths in custody, noting that roughly 15%, or 115 people, died while awaiting trial and were not yet convicted of any crime.
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Statewide, most deaths in custody, or 67%, were due to medical illnesses, though the report notes a lag in the data for 2021 where almost half of the deaths in custody that year were due to “unknown causes” while investigations were pending.
Suicides accounted for 11% or 87 deaths. More than half of the suicides in custody occurred in county jails. Meanwhile, 5% of deaths were attributed to violence, and 3% of deaths were drug overdose deaths.
Researchers noted some demographic differences in deaths by suicides and those attributed to violence. According to the findings, Black people were more likely to die in custody to violence compared with white people, and white people were more likely to die by suicide or drug overdosecompared to Black people.
The majority (90%) of deaths reported as a medical illness were due to “natural causes.” However, the research notes limitations of the data make it difficult to draw conclusions about whether those deaths were caused by conditions within the jail and prison systems.
For example, the report states that SCDC redacts information about medical conditions upon admission to a state prison.
“These redactions make it difficult to know whether medical deaths were the result of pre-existing conditions or instead were the result of conditions identified only within the prison system,” the report said.
During last week’s presentation of the report, SCDC Director Bryan Stirling was asked about issues carceral facilities face as well as how the aging population in state prisons may impact those.
“I'll say this, and I hope it doesn't come across wrong, but a 41-year-old that's been incarcerated for 20 years and likely had a drug addiction, likely had a very difficult life, physiologically, they're not 41,” Stirling said at the event.
Stirling referred to staffing shortages as one of the most significant problems facilities face. Last year, Gov. Henry McMaster allocated $30 million in the state budget to raise salaries for law enforcement and correctional officers across the state to address vacancies.
Stirling said addressing mental health needs for inmates in SCDC facilities remains a hurdle, stating there was only one psychiatrist working for the department when he was appointed as director in October 2013.
“We are the repository for mental health in the state of South Carolina. I mean, they end up with us and there's not the community support that I think there needs to be,” Stirling said. “It’s hard to treat people in prison with these issues.”
