HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) The majority of sex offenders in Horry County will be allowed to hand out candy to children on Halloween.

State law only prohibits sex offenders on probation or parole from participating in Halloween activities such as handing out candy or putting up decorations.  Report by WMBF News.

Horry County Sheriff’s Deputy Lieutenant Dowe Enzor said parents need to be aware of sex offenders living near their families, especially on Halloween.

Enzor suggested using the State or County sex offender tracking web site to keep track of offenders living nearby.

“It allows [parents] to put in an address or city, and lets you know who’s around you, so you know who’s around you and who you need to look out for,” Enzor said.

Socastee Resident Addrienne Highsmith lives within a quarter mile of 3 registered sex offenders, and despite the fact all three were convicted of crimes against children, she said she is not worried about her two children on Halloween.

“I stay with [my children while trick or treating].  I think parents should stay with their kids and they will be safe in any case, regardless [of whether sex offenders are nearby],” Highsmith said.

Johnny Chestnut lives next door to Highsmith and has 3 children of his own.  He said the thought of sex offenders handing candy to children is disconcerting, but does not think there is a reasonable way to prevent it.

“I don’t like the idea of it, but I think it would a very difficult thing to regulate,” Chestnut said.

Horry County Probation and Parole officials say about 80 of the more than 420 active sex offenders in the county are on probation or parole, and the rest have no restrictions on Halloween activity.

Officials say extra officers will monitor offenders on probation or parole on Halloween, making sure none of them put up decorations, leave their porch lights on or hand out candy to children.

Probation and Parole officers will also enforce a 5:30 PM curfew on Halloween for Offenders on probation or parole.

Horry County has an online data bank of all offenders and an email alert system that allows you to be notified when a sex offender moves to your area. To sign up go to: www.icrimewatch.net/index.php?agencyid=54080&disc.

Tammy SC Horry County, Sex Offenders, South Carolina

COLUMBIA — A lawsuit by three South Carolina inmates that makes a host of stomach-turning food-service allegations against the state has been moved from Charleston County to Richland County.

The 10-page hand printed lawsuit, filed in December, calls the conditions at the state’s Lieber Correctional Institution in Dorchester County “deplorable” and accuses its employees of committing “grossly negligent acts.” It targets the state Department of Corrections, the Department of Health and Environmental Control, and the Department of Agriculture. Report by The Augusta Chronicle.

“An awful, innumerable, and unbelievably overwhelmingly (sic) amount of flies were present in the dining room,” reads the inmates’ complaint, which includes a request for $30,000 in damages.

The inmates who are suing are Patrick L. Booker, 26, convicted of armed robbery, Bobby A. Gilbert, 34, convicted of murder, and Patrick Strozier, 46, who is serving a kidnapping sentence.

Their lawsuit also says that since 2009, the prison officials failed to ensure that inmate kitchen workers did their jobs. The result, they said, is a dining room floor that is “absolutely filthy with gross removable black soot, dirt and grime.”

When asked about the suit over the summer, a spokesman for the corrections department declined to comment, because the dispute was pending.

The inmates said the food they were served contributed to weight loss, headaches, listlessness, anxiety and depression.

Other allegations detailed in the suit include:

• Inmates were served “spoiled, greenish and undone meat; stale, molded bread; rotten boiled eggs; undercooked cold rice; flowered down and watery gravy; overcooked beans; soogie (sic) brownish lettuce; cold soup; spoiled and contaminated milk; cold, harden (sic) bread rolls and biscuits … long expired items such as ketchup, salad dressing, meats and discolored tomato paste.”

• Prison staff flouted state regulations that require them to post the food service grade and score and inspection records. The inmates also say they were served food labeled, “not for human consumption, animal feed.”

• Since May 2009, prison leadership engaged in “unfair trade practices” in order to cut costs and further their “kickback scheme.”

The American Correctional Association had no data on the number of grievances filed regarding food service in South Carolina prisons or across the nation. But a staff member said he could not recall receiving any reports about the conditions in prison kitchens or of the quality of food.

Tammy Food Services, Inmate Grievances, Jail and Prison Conditions, South Carolina

The South Carolina Department of Corrections has named Sylvia Randolph its 2008 Correctional Officer of the Year.  Report by WCBD-TV.

Ms. Randolph has been working in Columbia at what is now known as Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Center since 1988. Kirkland is where all of the state’s recently convicted inmates are brought before being evaluated and placed in one of the agency’s 28 correctional institutions.

Currently, Ms. Randolph serves as an Operations Officer, responsible each week for ensuring that more than 500 inmates are transported to the right institution. She also has worked in dormitories at the correctional institution and its mental health hospital, among other duties …

“Corrections is something new every day,” Ms. Randolph said after accepting her award at the annual Corrections award ceremony. “I’m always around different people and different personalities.”

vericatrajkova Awards, South Carolina

The Aiken Standard has published an editorial supporting the idea of a diversion court for non-violent offenders in South Carolina.

Attorney General Henry McMaster has an idea he thinks will improve our courts as well as our prisons. The attorney general wants to eliminate parole in South Carolina prisons and require those who are incarcerated to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.  At the same time he wants to lighten the load on our prisons by establishing a Middle Court system that would provide for tough supervision of many non-violent offenders without the need for putting them behind bars. Such a system would require $3,250 for each inmate to go through the 18-month process of Middle Court. That compares to the $16,000 per year the State must spend for each inmate in the prison system …

Among the benefits of such a system would be a more equitable system of sentencing by our judges. Presently judges cannot tell a victim or the victim’s family how much of a sentence a convicted felon will serve. It could be the entire amount, 85 percent of it, half of it or just a quarter. According to Mr. McMaster the average person in a South Carolina prison serves 54 percent of his sentence.

There is much good that will come out of Mr. McMaster’s proposal … Our General Assembly should pass this legislation for the good of the entire state.

vericatrajkova Community Corrections, Sentencing, South Carolina

Oconee County SC officials say a new state inspection report on the county jail adds further urgency to the effort to relieve overcrowding before the state Department of Corrections takes a direct hand in the problem.

State officials made no threats of such action as closing the jail, Maj. Steve Pruitt, county jail administrator, said Friday, but “they told us they would like to see some movement.”   The latest inspection report of the state Department of Corrections shows that the jail, which has a rated capacity of 122 inmates, last year had an average daily population of 166 prisoners, according to County Administrator Dale Surrett.   The highest number on any single day was 218 inmates, Surrett said …

State inspectors have found problems stemming from the detention center’s overcrowding every year for most of the last decade.   Among those problems:    Inadequate space for housing female inmates; inadequate space for keeping separate those inmates serving sentences from those awaiting trial;  inability to meet the minimum 35 square feet of space per inmate;  inability to ensure one working showerhead for every 12 inmates; space and staffing shortages mean the minimum three hours of physical exercise away from the cells can not always be met.

vericatrajkova Overcrowding, SC Oconee County

South Carolina’s highest ranking attorney wants to abolish parole and have more truth in sentencing. Attorney General Henry McMaster proposed major changes to the South Carolina court and penal system, Thursday night speaking to the Aiken GOP, as reported by the Aiken Standard.

Criminals completing a minimum of 85 percent of their sentence, eliminating parole and creating a “middle court” system for non-violent offenders highlighted McMaster’s address … McMaster believes his new plan will save the Palmetto state “hundreds of millions of dollars” and put “teeth back in the law”.   “When a judge says 10 years, they know it isn’t 10 years,” McMaster said. “Under our current system, (a criminal) can get out in 20 months… That is ridiculous.”   The Attorney General’s plan, which is being looked at in both the house and senate, would mean a sentence of 10 years would be literal, however a 15 percent reduction could be awarded to prisoners for good behavior.

“Middle Court” is for non-violent offenders who may have failed on parole previously. It is a more intensive program that would meet once-a-week for 18 months. Like certain drug courts, the system would rely on volunteer judges and other staff.   This system would require participants to keep up their education or remain employed. Those who failed out would be sent to jail to serve their full term, McMaster said.   Savings of this program, he said, would be millions. Imprisoned for a year, a criminal is a $16,000 burden on the taxpayer. McMaster said he estimates this program to cost $3,250 for the 18 month program.

vericatrajkova Probation and Parole, Sentencing, South Carolina

Hope House and four other Juvenile Justice group homes in South Carolina are closing their doors because of state budget cuts.  As reported by The State:

The closures are just one sign that a state in need of more group homes and programs for troubled youth is backpedaling to a time when youth offenders were warehoused behind razor wire, instead of helped, advocates say. Long term, those advocates predict more crimes, communities that are less safe, more juveniles in prison and more expensive lawsuits against the state.  Since July, Juvenile Justice has lost nearly a fourth of its state funding, or $23 million.  The agency has laid off 266 employees, nearly 15 percent of its work force, including teachers, social workers and security officers. It also has dismantled programs that, advocates say, have been proven effective in helping youthful offenders, including the five group homes and two dorms.

Director Bill Byars is taking it personally.   “We’re dismantling the front end of the system. The communities won’t be safe,” said Byars … As the economy staggers, cutting into the state’s revenues, Byars knows more budget cuts are likely. Another one — in the $7 million range — could put South Carolina in violation of a federal court order governing the way the state operates its juvenile system, he said. That could make the state vulnerable to another expensive lawsuit.  “I do not want to go back to when we were not a safe facility. This time, we may lose control of this agency altogether,” Byars said, noting that in 2007 Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered a takeover of that state’s juvenile agency …

A 2007 S.C. Department of Education study found that 80 percent of the participants in Juvenile Justice’s after-school programs stayed in school, had no infractions during their time in the programs and increased their grades by five points.  The program won the state agency two national awards. Now, most are closing.

There is much more detail in the full article.

vericatrajkova Economic Issues, Juvenile Justice, South Carolina

The Charleston Post & Courier has published an editorial calling on legislators to support the battered South Carolina Department of Corrections.  It reads, in part:

South Carolina’s prison system is facing budget difficulties that it can’t resolve without more cash or a major policy shift in sentencing that will reduce costs substantially. The Legislature can’t expect the Department of Corrections to keep struggling on … The financial problem is threatening security at state prisons. Jon Ozmint, director of the Department of Corrections, told a House committee last week that the department needs more money for essentials, including weapons, razor wire and bulletproof vests …

Corrections already has cut more than $4 million out of its budget for the current year, and there’s not much expectation for more economies. The state prison system currently operates at one of the lowest per-inmate costs in the nation. Mr. Ozmint reasonably has asked the Legislature to restore funding in its next budget. Without legislative assistance, the department’s financial problems ultimately can be expected to force employee furloughs, inmate releases and prison closings …

Mr. Ozmint has imposed a bare-bones operation upon the prison system, with prisoners growing much of their own food and living on a monotonous, frugal diet. How frugal?   Try $1.47 a day per inmate. The Legislature should look for systematic ways to sustain the prison system. Corrections should be allowed to do its job.

vericatrajkova Economic Issues, South Carolina

South Carolina prisons chief Jon Ozmint says his agency needs money to avoid a deficit and to replace brittle razor wire and guns so old the makers don’t have replacement parts.

Ozmint told a House budget committee Tuesday he’s looking for a little more than $38 million to avoid running a deficit in the budget year that begins July 1. In November, Ozmint expected a $14.5 million deficit. But that’s now grown to $36 million.  That includes nearly $4 million for maintenance and gear and about $2 million to cover rising medical costs.

vericatrajkova South Carolina

Buoyed by the successful test of cell-phone jamming technology Friday in a South Carolina prison, Texas officials confirmed Tuesday that they are working on a similar demonstration in the Lone Star State.

House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden said he has requested a test of the technology at a Texas prison “as soon as it can be worked out.”  The proposed date and site: Dec. 18 at the Travis County state jail in Austin. “It would take a change in federal law to allow jamming such as this, but I would hope there could be some action to change the law sooner rather than later,” Madden said. “Federal law gives federal agencies the authority to jam cell signals, and I think it’s strange the states could have inmates just as dangerous as the feds, and we can’t jam the cell signals.”

The issue has been a hot topic after condemned double murderer Richard Lee Tabler made cell phone calls from death row to state Sen. John Whitmire and [a] reporter last month. Tabler, his mother and his sister were busted on contraband charges after Whitmire — who chairs the powerful Senate committee that oversees prisons — reported the calls.  Eighteen cell phones and related paraphernalia have been found on death row since Gov. Rick Perry ordered a zero-tolerance policy on contraband in state prisons, a move that brought the first lockdown and coordinated sweep for contraband in all of Texas’ 112 state prisons in a decade …

[T]he Federal Communications Commission recently warned that tests like the one in South Carolina are illegal under a law that is 73 years old.  Based on Friday’s test, Josh Gelinas, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections, said corrections officials there plan to petition the FCC for permission to conduct a pilot program using the technology. Gelinas and Doyle said Friday’s test jammed cell phone traffic in a contained area inside a South Carolina prison but did not interfere with radio traffic between correctional officers or cell traffic outside the prison.”It was very successful,” Gelinas said.

Much more information available from the Austin American-Statesman.

vericatrajkova Inmate Telephones, South Carolina, Texas