The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center Lawsuit

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center: Horrifying Conditions, Inhumane Treatment

The legal battle to protect detainees

People locked in showers too small to allow them to sit for 48 hours at a time. Detainees hand-cuffed or zip-tied to chairs for days on end, without bathroom breaks. Grossly unsanitary conditions, including inoperable toilets, human waste in cells, and limited access to clean drinking water.

Detainees dying of overdoses, suicides, and dehydration, including at least nine fatalities since the first lawsuit asking for improvements at the jail. And that’s on top of inadequate health-care services and other physical threats that detainees at Richland County’s Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, many of whom have not even been convicted of a crime, face regularly.

“The conditions inside the Richland County jail are a matter of life and death. Individuals accused of crimes in Richland County should not face a death sentence before they ever see a court room,” said U.S. Attorney Adair F. Boroughs for the District of South Carolina.

Burnette Shutt & McDaniel agrees. That’s why our attorneys have spent years engaged in a legal battle with the county over conditions at the jail.

A Federal Lawsuit to Fight Conditions

Attorneys Stuart Andrews and Ashley Pennington have been part of the legal team representing Disability Rights South Carolina since the first legal action was filed in 2022. That lawsuit, in U.S. District Court, cited numerous instances of detainees, many with mental or physical disabilities, being forced to live in medieval conditions.

After two years of inadequate progress, the legal team asked for a preliminary injunction ordering immediate action at the jail. By that time, 15 detainees had joined the case as plaintiffs. Many recounted horrifying instances of failure to provide life-saving care, sexual assaults, long confinements in cells with no running water, and lack of feminine hygiene products.

Eventually, the problems at the center drew attention from other branches of government attention. The state Department of Corrections called for a strategy for remedial action after the jail failed inspections due to the same issues for years on end. The U.S. Justice Department investigated. Its conclusion: Richland County was violating detainees’ Constitutional rights by failing “to provide reasonable safety and to protect incarcerated people from serious harm and death by physical violence from other incarcerated people, including assaults with weapons, assaults by multiple people on single victims and sexual assaults.”

Richland County has responded, but slowly, agreeing to $33 million in renovations to rusty, dirty, mold dormitories, plumbing, and heating and cooling systems. Officials have boosted officer pay in an attempt to remedy chronic understaffing.

Much work remains, though, including addressing the issue of improving mental-health services. Burnette Shutt & McDaniel remains committed to the battle.

Media Coverage:

Links to third-party websites are not under the control of Burnette Shutt & McDaniel, PA, and our firm assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained on such websites.

Attorneys

Featured Cases