The Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center in Georgetown, South Carolina is a local jail facility that services the Georgetown County area of South Carolina.  It is run by the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office, which is under the supervision of Sheriff A. Lane Cribb.

The Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center houses all of the people arrested anywhere in Georgetown County by any local law enforcement in the county.  It is the county’s pre-trial detention facility, but it is not only a pre-trial detention facility.  It is also responsible for housing state and federal prisoners that are assigned to the center.

The Georgetown County Detention Center opened in 1996.  It can hold up to 212 inmates.  It has a staff of 49 employees; 42 correctional officers and 7 non-correctional staff employees.

The Georgetown County Detention Center is responsible for booking and housing anyone arrested in Georgetown County.  It is also responsible for housing state and federal prisoners that are assigned to the detention center, either to serve their sentences or for temporary detention.  It handles fingerprinting, photographing, and recording information about all prisoners that are brought into the center, as well as background checks on the prisoners to ensure that they are placed in appropriate housing units.  In addition, the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center provides clothing, food, and medical services to all prisoners in its care, regardless of the prisoner’s designation.

Some inmates at the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center are given the opportunity to be on work crews that provide essential services for the county, including picking up litter on county roadways and providing labor for some county agencies.  The Detention Center supervises these inmate labor crews.

One surprising function of the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center is that it provides services to the county that are well outside the typical jail services; it serves as the county’s back up emergency operations center during hurricanes.

Georgetown County Detention Center Addresses

Physical Address

The Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center’s address is:

Georgetown County Detention Center
2394 Browns Ferry Road
Georgetown, SC 29440

The Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office address is:

Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office
430 North Fraser Street
Georgetown, SC 29440

Mailing Address

The Georgetown County Detention Center mailing address for non-inmate mail is:

Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office
PO Box 1292
Georgetown, SC 29442

Inmate Mailing Address

You may send mail to inmates using the U.S. Postal Service.  Contact the jail prior to sending mail though any other carrier; inmate correspondence is generally required to travel through the USPS. 

To send mail to an inmate, address it as follows:

Inmate Name
Georgetown County Detention Center
2394 Browns Ferry Road
Georgetown, SC 29440

The Georgetown County Detention Center does not provide a comprehensive list of rules for inmate mail, but almost all correctional facilities adhere to some basic rules and guidelines for inmate mail.  We are providing those guidelines for you, so that you can ensure that your mail complies with them.  The Georgetown County Detention Center may not require you to follow all of these guidelines, and may have additional guidelines that you need to follow for inmate mail.  If you have any questions about a particular piece of inmate mail, you should contact the correctional facility.

General correctional facility mail guidelines:

1. Mail should consist of standard white paper in a standard size for mailing, usually 8x11 paper or postcards.  Some correctional facilities will not permit inmates to receive any type of pre-printed greeting card, while others will.  We advise you not to send cards to an inmate unless you check with the facility beforehand and determine that it is permitted.
2. All inmate mail should be sent in an unadorned plain envelope free of any decorations, stickers, or stamps other than postage stamps.
3. All inmate mail should be sent in envelopes with the sender and receiver’s full address, including full name. At many facilities, envelopes without complete return addresses will be rejected.
4. You should not send any foreign objects with the letter; letters should contain only paper.  The one exception to this rule is that some facilities allow inmates to receive photographs.  However, inmates may be limited on the type of photographs that they can receive, the number of photographs they can receive per package, or even the total number of photographs that they can have in their position.  
5. If the facility allows inmates to receive cards, it is important to select plain greeting cards.  Any cards that contain anything that could be used as a weapon, such as cards with plastic, metal, or wood objects in them, are usually banned.  This prohibition generally extends to musical cards, light up cards, and motion cards.  In addition, cards with glitter may also be banned. 
6. You should not put any fluids on the mail.  This includes bodily fluids, but also things like perfume spritzes or kisses made of lipstick.  Some facilities may even require you to write inmates in specific colored pen or pencil and prohibit them receiving written materials written with non-standard instruments like markers. 
7. Almost all jail facilities prohibit inmates from receiving sexually explicit material.  The definition of sexually explicit tends to be very broad, and not only covers material that is obscene or pornographic but also any type of nudity or any depiction of any sexual activity.   
8. Inmates generally cannot receive material that the prison would consider incendiary, which covers a wide range of materials.  Generally prohibited materials include: material depicting criminal behavior (this includes fictionalized accounts of criminal behavior and might prevent inmates from being able to receive pretty standard novels); gang-related materials; materials that are racist or prejudiced towards a religious or ethnic group; and anything that could be considered an escape plan or the materials needed to create an escape plan.
9. Inmates should not be sent any type of weapon or any material that could be used to create a weapon; sending these items not only violates jail rules, but may also subject the sender to prosecution.
10. No intoxicating substances should be sent to inmates, including: alcohol, tobacco, nicotine products, over-the-counter medications, prescription medication, or illegal drugs.

Phone Numbers

The main contact number for the Georgetown County Detention Center is 843-545-3400.  The Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office’s main number is 843-546-5102.  The Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office’s emergency dispatch number is 843-546-5101.

Georgetown County Bookings

Georgetown County Detention Center provides a list of bookings and releases.  This list provides information on individuals who were booked at the Georgetown County Detention Center and may have been arrested by the City of Georgetown, Town of Andrews, Town of Pawleys Island, and the South Carolina Department of Public Safety (South Carolina Highway Patrol).  It collects data regularly and gives the time and date that the data was collected.  It allows you to search by last name, booking date, and release date.  The records returned give the inmate’s booking photo, first and last name, city of residence, ethnicity, sex, date of birth, age, booking date, release date, booking number, arresting agency, the charges against them, what has happened with the charges, and any fines or bail.

Inmate Search

When you pull up Georgetown County Detention Center’s list of bookings and releases it provides a full list of inmates booked on the current date up to a certain time.  (The time and date the list was compiled are provided for the user).  This is not a full list of inmates incarcerated in the Georgetown County Detention Center, but a list of recent arrests.  However, this list is also searchable for other inmates.  You may search by last name, booking date, or release date to find other inmates.   Their records contain information about the inmate including: a mugshot, the inmate’s full name, the inmate’s ethnicity (but not race- it seems to be country of origin instead of actual ethnicity), city of residence, date of birth, age, sex, charges against the inmate, whether the case is pending or has been disposed, any fines or bail, the booking number, the booking date, the release date, and the arresting agency. 

Georgetown County Jail Mugshots  

The Georgetown County Detention Center’s list of bookings and releases contains booking photos or mugshots of all of the inmates that are booked into the Georgetown County Detention Center.     

Visitation

The Georgetown County Detention Center does not offer general visitation hours, and you should contact the facility for information about when you can visit a particular inmate.  As primarily a temporary holding facility, many inmates will be processed and released from the facility before a visit could occur. 

General rules for visitation at a local county-level jail include the following:

1. Limitations on the number of people permitted per visit;
2. No unaccompanied minors may visit, and minors may have to be accompanied by an adult or guardian in order to visit;
3. Limitations on the numbers of visits per day or week;
4. Visitors must have a valid and acceptable photo i.d. in order to visit.  Types of acceptable i.d. include: passports, military identification cards, driver’s licenses, state-issued i.d. cards, and some residency or citizenship documentation. If you have questions about whether your photo identification would be acceptable, contact the jail prior to a visit; 
5. Do not bring cell phones or other electronics into the visitation room;
6. Do not bring weapons or anything that can be used as a weapon to visitation, even if you otherwise have the legal right to have that weapon, it might even be illegal to bring some weapons onto jail property;
7. Do not visit while intoxicated;
8. Behave in an orderly manner during visitation or the visit may be terminated and you may be barred from future visits;
9. Do not pass anything to an inmate while visiting;
10. Dress modestly for a visit;
11. Do not bring any drugs, including prescription and over-the-counter medications into visitation (if you have an emergency medical condition that requires you to carry medication with you at all times, you need to consult with the jail beforehand about how to handle that scenario); and
12. Follow all guard instructions during visitation.

Inmate Phone Privileges

Inmates at the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center generally cannot receive incoming phone calls.  If you have an emergency scenario that requires you reach an inmate immediately, you may call the jail’s administrative phone number, 843-545-3400 and ask them to give the inmate a message to call you back.  Whether or not they choose to do so is at the discretion of the person manning the phone lines as well as other jail officials.  You might be required to provide proof of the emergency for them to do so.

Outgoing inmate calls are collect calls.  You can either accept charges or make arrangements though the jail’s phone service provider to set up a telephone calling account for the inmate.

All inmate calls, other than calls to their attorneys, are subject to monitoring and recording.

If you are a crime victim that is being contacted by the perpetrator from inside of the jail, contact the jail immediately to let them know what is occurring; the phone service provider may be able to block you from receiving calls.

Inmate Trust Accounts / Commissary

Georgetown County Detention Center has a commissary/canteen program that allows inmates to use money from inmate trust accounts to purchase items, such as hygiene items and snacks, that the jail does not supply to inmates.  Contact the jail at 843-545-3400 for more information on how to make deposits into an inmate’s trust account.    

Bail Information

The Georgetown County Solicitor’s Office is responsible for the scheduling of criminal cases and maintains a database of information about criminal cases, including bail information.  You can contact the Solicitor’s Office at 843-546-3751 or find out information from the Clerk of Court’s Office.  The Solicitor’s Office maintains an automated access system, which is available free-of-charge, 24 hours a day, and provides updates on frequently asked questions about court cases.  That number is 843-545-3057.

In Georgetown County, there are two types of payable bonds: cash bonds and bail bonds.  A cash bond refers to paying the entire amount of a bond, in cash. These are fully returnable to the person posting the bond, as long as the defendant appears at all scheduled court appearances.  A bail bond refers to utilizing the services of a third party, known as a bail bondsman, to secure release when you cannot or do not want to pay the full amount of a cash bond.  Generally, a bail bondsman charges 10% of the cash bond amount.  This charge is non-refundable.  In exchange for it, the bail bondsman promises the court the defendant will appear for trial.  If the defendant fails to appear, then the bail bondsman is liable for the entire amount of the bond.  For larger bond amounts, the bail bondsman may require the person seeking to post bond to post some type of security to cover the bond amount.

You can locate a bail bondsman by looking in the local yellow pages or by looking online.

Conclusion

The Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center is the local jail facility that services all of Georgetown County South Carolina.  It is managed by Sheriff A. Lane Cribb and the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office.  The phone number for the Georgetown County Detention Center is 843-545-3400.  The address for the jail is 2394 Browns Ferry Road, Georgetown, SC 29440.

A medium-sized local jail facility, the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office is staffed by 49 employees and can house up to 212 inmates.  In addition to serving as a detention center, it is also the county’s emergency backup center for hurricane-related disaster preparedness.

Many of the inmates at the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center have the opportunity of working on work crews as part of their sentence, often in exchange for a reduction in their sentences.  The Georgetown County Detention Center is responsible for supervising inmate workers, whether they are picking up litter on county roadways or providing other types of labor to various county agencies.

The detention center has not provided automated forms for visitation, jail calls, or inmate trust accounts; you need to contact the jail for inmate-specific information.