The Richland County Jail, known as the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, is a county-level jail in Richland County, South Carolina. The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center is run by the Richland Department of Public Safety, which also includes Richland County’s Animal Care, Coroner, Emergency Services, the Sheriff’s Department, Special Services, and Victim and Witness Assistance.  The director of the jail is Ronaldo Myers.

The goal of the Richland County Jail is to serve the needs of all parts of the community including: prisoners, staff, law enforcement, the courts, attorneys, community organizations, and the citizens of the community.  It does so by providing multi-level security for a variety of offenders; arranging visitation for family members, law enforcement, and attorneys; and by providing services aimed at facilitating rehabilitation and reintegration into society upon release.  In addition to handling incarcerations, the jail also handles alternatives to incarceration including community service and electronic monitoring.

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center handles intake for un-sentenced misdemeanor and felony detainees and as an incarceration facility for sentenced offenders.  It has minimum, medium, and maximum security environments.

One of the goals of the Richland County Jail is to ensure that inmates are no worse off upon release than prior to incarceration, which is a very real possibility for many people who are detained in correctional facility.  The jail offers adequate exercise, privacy, personal necessities, visitation, access to services from outside agencies, programing and services to promote self-development, and religious worship opportunities.

Religious services at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center are not provided by the jail, but are provided by the community.  Volunteers, community organizations, and churches in the county work with the jail to provide a variety of religious outreach opportunities in the jail.  Not all religions are currently represented in religious services, but the jail will work with inmates and the community to try to handle all inmates’ religious needs.

Richland County Jail Address:

Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center
Richland County Jail
201 John Mark Dial Drive
Columbia, SC 29209

Mailing Address:

The Richland County Jail mailing address is:

Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center
201 John Mark Dial Drive
Columbia, SC 29209

Jail Phone Numbers:

Unlike many jail facilities, the John S. Glenn Detention Center provides a full roster of numbers for people wishing to contact the jail.

Director                                      Ronaldo Myers        803-876-3202
Assistant Director                      Shane Kitchen         803-876-3210
Administrative Office Manager Grif Cole                  803-876-3201
Classification                              Melisa Vinson         803-876-3233
Facility Maintenance                  Michael Smith         803-876-3214
Finance                                       Betty Vereen            803-876-3204
Food Services                                                              803-876-3221
Human Resources                      Jerilyn Jones            803-876-3203
Inmate Accounts                        Gail Baker               803-876-3217
Inmate Records                                                           803-876-3238/ 803-876-3239
Internal Affairs                          Margita Friedley      803-876-3206
Juvenile Detention                     Donald Weston        803-876-3252
Mail Clerk                                  Steven Tindal           803-876-3218
Medical Department                  (Nurse)                     803-876-3224
Medical Services                        Director of Nursing 803-876-3381
Medical Services  Health Services Administrator      803-876-3222
Operations                                  Washave Moye        803-876-3236
Payroll Clerk                              Timothy Peters        803-876-3205
Programs/Admin                        Curtis Buffod          803-876-3207
Quality Assurance                      Paige Boddie           803-876-3219
Recruitment & Retention           Teraine L. Brown    803-876-3216
Security                                      Michael Higgins      803-876-3249
Training                                      James Hayes            803-876-3215
Transportation                            Michelle Richardson           803-876-3211
Victim Advocate                       Deborah Jordan       803-876-3289

Inmate Mailing Address:

To send inmate mail via the U.S. Postal Service, you send it to the following address:

Inmate Name, Inmate Number, Inmate Housing Unit
Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center
201 John Mark Dial Drive
Columbia, SC 29209

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center does not publish a list of contraband that inmates cannot receive in the mail.  However, almost all detention facilities have rules about what inmates can and cannot receive.  Generally, inmates can receive personal mail, legal mail, books, and magazines. Books and magazines must be sent directly from the publisher.  Acceptable items include: letters and appropriate photos.

You can mail money, in the form of a money order, directly to an inmate at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.

Generally, inmates are prohibited from receiving more pictures than they are allowed to possess; pictures greater than a specified size; any type of pre-printed material; stamps; stickers; any papers with foreign materials like lipstick or perfume on them; sexually explicit material; nudity; escape plans; materials that could be used to incite violence; drugs; weapons; drug paraphernalia; or items that could be used to make weapons.

Richland County Inmate Search:

Richland County’s Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center has two ways to find out if an inmate is detained in the facility.  Public access is granted through an online inmate search. Public searches allow you to look for an inmate by first or last name.  There is also a secure access option, which requires an issued user name and password.

After you locate an inmate by name, you are given the opportunity to click on their booking photo, or a box telling you that the booking photo is unavailable, to find more details about the inmate.  These details include: full name, inmate identification number, sex, hair color, eye color, race, the current charges against the offender, warrant codes, bond amounts, and a description of each charged offense.

Alvin S. Glenn Inmate Bookings/ Recent Arrests:

Richland County Jail does not have a designated page for looking for recent bookings or arrests.  However, you could use the Public access portion of the county’s inmate locator service to search for inmates, by name, to see if someone has been recently incarcerated.

Mugshots:

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center does not provide a mugshot-only roster of inmates for the public.  However, if you use the Public access inmate locator site, there are mugshots for many of the inmates who are detained.  Not all inmates have available mugshots, and the Richland County Jail does not offer an explanation for why some inmates have mugshots while others do not.

Jail Visitation:

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center has one of the more liberal visitation policies to be found at a county-level jail facility that houses both pre-trial and post-conviction detainees.

Visitation is every weekday (Monday through Friday), from 8:15 am to 8:30 pm.  However, no visitation can occur during mealtimes, when the facility is locked down, or at shift changes.  If you arrive for visitation during those times, you may be given the option of waiting.  However, if the facility is on lockdown, you will probably be asked to return at a later time.  You can call prior to visiting to determine if the facility is on lockdown and to inquire about meal times and shift changes.

Each inmate can have one one-hour visitation time slot per week.  Under special circumstances, an inmate may be permitted more than a single visitation time slot in a week, but those must be prearranged with the jail.

Each inmate may have two visitors visit during each visit.  Children (people under 18 years of age) are counted in the two-person total.  There are generally no exceptions to this rule, but if you feel that special circumstances apply, you can contact the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center to seek an exemption.

Visitors must dress appropriately, and appropriate clothing is determined by the jail staff.  Although the facility does not publish a specific visitation dress code, guidance may be found in the dress codes of other jail facilities.  Generally, jail facilities require that all visitors wear appropriate undergarments, be fully dressed, and not wear clothing that is distracting or sexual.  Specific types of clothing that are usually prohibited include:  short dresses or shorts, bare midriffs, low-cut blouses, see-through clothing, or clothing with offensive images or language.

Visitors cannot bring contraband into the jail; doing so can subject a visitor to prosecution.  Contraband includes obvious things such as weapons and drugs, but may also include seemingly innocuous items such as pens, pencils, lighters, any sharp objects, containers, and tobacco.

Visitors should not be intoxicated at the time of visitation.  Visitors who appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol will not be permitted to visit and may have visitation privileges removed.

Visitors must behave appropriately during the visit.  If visitors or inmates behave in a way that is inappropriate, threatening, or sexual during the visit, the visit may be terminated and visitation privileges may be revoked.

Visitors and guests must have an approved form of photo identification for the visit.  If you have questions about whether a minor visitor needs photo identification in order to visit, contact the jail prior to visitation.

Attorney visitation is not conducted in the visitation room and does not count towards an inmate’s one visit per week.  There is a private attorney visitation room; if it is in use, visitation may occur in the multi-purpose room.

Inmate Phone Privileges:

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center does not have information on phone calls for inmates.  However, like most jail facilities, it does allow inmates to place outgoing calls, but inmates cannot receive incoming phone calls.

Calls from jail generally must be collect calls, unless the jail has established a phone system through the jail that allows the inmate to pay for those calls.

Phone calls will be limited in duration.

Phone calls from jail will be terminated if the recipient of the phone call attempts to forward the call or use three-way calling.  Your call may end if you attempt to use the call waiting function on the phone while speaking with the inmate.

If you are being contacted by an inmate and want the contact to stop, you can take two steps to end the contact.  First, the call will be identified as a call from jail; do not accept the call.  Second, contact the facility where the inmate is being detained.  Please contact the facility immediately if there has been harassment or threats.

Inmate Trust Accounts:

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center does allow you to put money into inmate accounts for them to use for their commissary purchases.

Commissary purchases allow inmates to purchase items that are not provided by the jail.  The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center is committed to providing items that an inmate needs for daily living, including clothing, toiletries, food, and hygiene items.  Commissary purchases may include other types of or additional sets of clothing, specific hygiene items that are not available for free from the jail, snack foods, writing materials, and other options.  Inmates can use funds from their inmate trust accounts, also known as commissary accounts, to purchase things that are not provided by the jail.

The business hours for inmate accounts are Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.

You can make deposits several ways:

No personal checks will be accepted for any deposits into an inmate’s account.

You can bring a money order to deposit into an inmate’s account to the lobby of the Alvin S. Glenn Facility.  All money orders must be U.S.P.S. money orders; no other type of money order will be accepted.  All money orders must include the inmate’s full and complete name, date of birth, and inmate number. 

You can use lobby kiosks to use cash or credit cards for inmate deposits.  Staff will not accept cash or credit cards at the counter.  The kiosk is available during the above listed business hours.

You can make an internet deposit by visiting the McDaniel Supply Company online and following the online instructions for a deposit to an inmate at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Richland County, South Carolina. Make sure that you have the inmate’s identifying information, including inmate’s full and complete name, date of birth, and inmate number, before attempting to make a deposit.

You may leave money orders to deposit from 8:00am to 10:00pm, seven days a week, at the front lobby.

You can also mail money orders to the detention center.  If you are mailing a money order to the detention center, you need to include the following information on the envelope:

Inmate Name, Inmate Number, Housing Unit
Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center
201 John Mark Dial Dr.
Columbia, SC 29209

Commissary is ordered once per week.  In order for an inmate to be able to place a commissary order for the week, deposits must be received before 12pm on Wednesday of that week.

Bail Information:

In Richland County, South Carolina, magistrates perform bail hearings four times each day in order to determine whether a defendant is eligible for bail, any bail conditions, the type of bail, and the amount of such bail.

To find out whether an inmate is eligible for bail, you can attend the bail hearing.  If unable to do that, you can look at the inmate’s information on the inmate lookup tool.  You can always call the jail to inquire about an inmate’s jail status if unable to find it another way.

To post bail, you need to make arrangements with the Richland County Magistrate’s Court, which is the judicial agency responsible for setting bail in the county.  If you have questions about the bail process, you can contact the Ombudsman One-Call Response Center at 803-929-6000 or via email at [email protected].

If you need the services of a bondsman, you can find one in the Yellow Pages or online.  Neither the jail nor the county will recommend any particular bondsman or bond company.

Conclusion

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center is the county jail for Richland County, South Carolina.  IT is responsible for housing both pre-trial detainees and post-conviction detainees.  To contact the jail facility, you can call a variety of numbers to reach a specific department.  You can find a list of numbers in our phone number section.  The Jail Director’s name is Ronaldo Myers and his number is 803-876-3202.

The jail is located at 201 John Mark Dial Drive, Columbia, SC 29209.

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center strives to meet a wide variety of community needs.  In addition to provide secure detention of pre-trial and post-conviction detainees, it tries to meet the needs of staff, law enforcement, the courts, attorneys, community organizations, and other citizens of the community.  It also has minimum, medium, and maximum security environments, so that it can secure a wide range of offenders.  To try to meet differing community and inmate needs, the jail sometimes takes an unconventional approach to jailing, and even handles some alternatives to incarceration including community service and electronic monitoring.  Rehabilitative programming is an important part of the jail’s functions, and it works with community organizations and religious organizations to try to ensure that inmates have access to the programming they need.