By Andrew Shain
The State
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The head of South Carolina’s Department of Juvenile Justice told a special Senate panel Tuesday that she needs to boost pay for corrections officers and find ways for them to better defend themselves in the wake of recent violent incidents.
Juvenile inmates set fires and rioted at the agency’s Broad River Road Complex in February, spurring hearings in the S.C. House and Senate.
Juvenile Justice director Sylvia Murray said her agency has trouble retaining corrections officers because of high job stress and low pay. Salaries start at less than $26,000 a year.
Nearly one in five positions is vacant for correction officers who work behind the fence at the Broad River facility, Murray said. The complex houses 83 inmates, who have committed serious crimes. The agency has another 1,000 juveniles in rehabilitation camps and evaluation centers.
The panel, which includes senators who previously examined a spate of children deaths with ties to the state Department of Social Services, pledged to help Murray.
The House and Senate are considering bolstering the pay of Juvenile Justice officers by $1,500 a year as part of the state budget that take effect July 1. Murray said she eventually wants to add 45 more corrections officers.
“We’ve got to help you put out the fires,” said state Sen. Joel Lourie, R-Richland.
Juvenile Justice has started a series of improvements, including filling key leaderships posts that had been vacant for years and increasing the severity of punishment for inmates who violate rules. The agency also added unbreakable glass and metal detectors to its Broad River facility. That work cost $400,000 and was paid for from the agency’s more than $3 million rainy-day fund.
The Senate panel wants to understand what led to disturbances in December and February.
The February riot took four hours to control as juvenile inmates set fires, broke windows, sprayed fire extinguishers and stole a car. Male inmates also broke into the living quarters for female prisoners, and one inmate escaped.
“This night sounds like the night from hell,” Lourie said.
The agency did not call for back-up assistance from the State Law Enforcement Division because officers thought they could defuse the violence, said Freddie Pough, interim inspector general and police chief.
An emergency-response team was started after the December incident but was not in place during the February riot, Pough said. Juvenile Justice is negotiating with SLED to provide back-up in any future uprisings, he added.
Senators were surprised to learn corrections officers, who are mostly women, had no weapons to better control Juvenile Justice’s mostly male prison population before the February riot.
“They need to be able to defend themselves with something other than their own hands,” said Sen. Tom Young, R-Aiken, who chairs the panel.
Pough, who has worked with the agency for seven weeks, said Juvenile Justice is working to improve officer’s self-defense training and examining the practices in other states, including the weapons that their officers carry. Juvenile Justice officers have been given pepper spray, he added.
But most states don’t arm juvenile corrections officers, director Murray said. “They see them as children going through growth spurts, and that could could hurt those growth spurts.”
Copyright 2016 The State