LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — Lancaster County could break ground on a new $47 million detention center as soon as June 2022. The new detention center will solve overcrowded conditions seen at the current facility, according to Lancaster County Sheriff Barry Faile.
“We just can’t separate inmates like they need to be,” Faile said. “When you have gang members, you certainly want them separated. Defendants and co-defendants that need to be separated. Males and females. We have inmates that are sick. We have inmates that may have mental health issues.”
Faile said the current capacity for the detention center, which hasn’t seen major additions since 1997, is 121 inmates. At times, though, it has held more than 200 inmates – creating safety concerns for inmates and detention officers.
"We just don't have the type of facility to house the number of inmates we have -- we can't separate them like they need to be," Sheriff Faile said. "And it's really becoming a hazard, a safety issue for the employees back there."
However, relief is coming. Lancaster County’s council and voters approved a referendum to build a new $47 million facility with enough beds to house more than 300 inmates. If the project stays on schedule, it will break ground this summer. However, it likely won’t be completed for another three or four years.
In the past decade, Lancaster County’s population grew by about 25% to 96,016 in 2020. In the next 30 years, the current population is expected to double in size.
As Lancaster County’s population grows, so does the inmate population in its detention center.
“We’ve got to have a place to put those folks," Faile said. "It’s our responsibility when we arrest them to make sure that they’re safe, and certainly, in the facility we’ve got it’s not always that way."
Contact Indira Eskieva at ieskieva@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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