By Ted Clifford
The State
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A guard at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center has been charged with misconduct in office after she allegedly helped deliver a DoorDash meal to an inmate.
Amara Brown, a detention center officer at the troubled Richland County jail, is also accused of talking to an inmate after work hours when he would call her on a contraband cellphone, according to a statement released by the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.
Brown, 27, was charged Friday with misconduct in office and furnishing contraband to a prisoner.
Deputies say that Brown admitted to talking to an inmate outside of work hours on several occasions since March of last year. In its statement, the sheriff’s department also said that Brown admitted to ordering food on DoorDash and “going out of her assigned area to deliver the food to the inmate’s pod.”
The food was found by guards after a shakedown of the inmate’s cell, according to the sheriff’s department.
The statement released by the sheriff’s department does not name the inmate.
Brown was booked at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center. Court and jail records do not indicated whether a bond has been set.
Staffing has long been identified as major problem at the troubled jail. A recently launched civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice identified staffing as a leading “concern” that drove violence and a breakdown in conditions.
Last April, then-interim jail Director Crayman Harvey, now the permanent director, identified a need to attract more desirable job candidates in order to change the jail’s culture.
In 2023, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department confirmed it arrested nine guards employed at the jail. Their charges ranged from assaulting inmates to smuggling contraband, including drugs and cellphones. One lieutenant at the jail was charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct after he allegedly beat and then sexually assaulted a woman inside of her home.
Brown is the first detention center officer to be arrested in 2024.
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