Bamberg County, South Carolina — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Bamberg County Detention Center

Operated byCounty (detention center department)
Jail address444 Second Street, P.O. Box 928, Bamberg, SC 29003
Jail phone(803) 245-3020
PopulationAdult male and female offenders only
FY27 budgetDetention Center department total $2,405,846; Sheriff department total $1,605,936 (FY27 complete budget)
Budget linesInmate meals $294,855; county physician $100,000; inmate medical & drugs $100,000; jail service contracts $30,000 (FY27)
Holding others' prisonersCounty fee schedule FY2026 lists 'Municipal Detainees and Prisoners Fee Per Day $50.00'
Hiring of directorCounty administration announced Captain Moses Cheatham as Detention Center Captain effective Sept. 11, 2023
Jail AdministratorCaptain Moses Cheatham, Director of the Detention Center (county press release, Aug 2026)

Source: Bamberg County - Detention Center page · checked 2026-09-29

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✓What it costs taxpayers
✗Deaths in custody — not published
✗PREA audits — not published
✗Independent inspection — not published
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✗How to post bond — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Bamberg County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-29. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Kenny Bamberg

CurrentNamed as Bamberg County Sheriff on the county's Sheriff's Office page (association directory lists him as Kenneth J. Bamberg)
Runs the jailNo — the county site lists the Detention Center as its own Public Safety department, separate from the Sheriff's Office; the county administration announced the hiring of its captain

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Bamberg County - Sheriff's Office page · checked 2026-09-29

The Judges

South Carolina's circuit court judges are elected by the General Assembly and hear felony cases. For most charges a magistrate sets bond soon after arrest; for offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment only a circuit judge can.

Who sets bail in Bamberg County

Circuit Court: South Carolina's Second Judicial Circuit, which also serves Aiken and Barnwell. Circuit judges are elected by the General Assembly to six-year terms and hear felony cases; for offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment only a circuit judge can set bond.
Magistrate Court: the Bamberg County magistrates. For most charges a magistrate sets bond soon after arrest.

Still needed

The county's bond schedule
Share of the jail population held pretrial
Median time from booking to first appearance

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-29

The County Council

They pay for the jail. Depending on the county, the sheriff or a county detention department runs it.

What they controlThe county budget that funds the detention center and the sheriff's office, and the jail building itself. In counties where the sheriff has handed the jail to the county, the council's administrator runs it.
What they don'tDay-to-day operations where the sheriff keeps the jail (S.C. Code 24-5-10). The state Department of Corrections inspects every detention center each year (S.C. Code 24-9-20).
The boardBamberg County Council →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Examined: county site bambergcounty.sc.gov opened (detention center, commissary, visitation, sheriff's office, quick links, finance, FY27 budget, fee schedule, council agendas-minutes, press releases).
The Detention Center is a county Public Safety department separate from the Sheriff's Office; its director is Captain Moses Cheatham.
Visitation page publishes weekend visiting hours and rules; commissary page names SmartDeposit for deposits and Securus for inmate contact, but no fee rates.
FY27 complete budget shows the Detention Center and Sheriff department lines, including inmate meals, medical and 'jail service contracts' lines; the contracts themselves are not published.
The county fee schedule sets a $50/day fee for municipal detainees and prisoners; no housing agreement document was found.
County press release (Aug 11, 2026) says a detention officer was relieved of duty after being charged with assault and battery third degree involving an inmate, and that the county is cooperating with law enforcement.
No roster, capacity, bond guidance, PREA, death-in-custody or inspection report found on the county site.
What was tried: https://bambergcountysc.gov/detention-center redirected to https://www.bambergcounty.sc.gov/public-safety/detention-center (opened).
State inspection/oversight: The South Carolina Department of Corrections must inspect every county detention center each year and send written reports to county officials (S.C. Code 24-9-20). A county earns the inspections mark here only if it posts such a report on its own site.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Bamberg County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).

How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?

Your VOTE is POWERFUL.

The sheriff is elected. So are the county council members who pay for the jail.

Names verified 2026-09-29 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered