The Detention Center
Greenville County Detention Center
- Operated byCounty (detention center department)
- OperatorDivision of the Greenville County Department of Public Safety
- Adult facilityGreenville County Adult Detention Center
- Jail address20 McGee Street, Greenville, S.C. 29601
- Rated capacity1,277 across three buildings
- Building Two1976; rated 511
- Building One1994; rated 318
- Building Four2007; rated 448
- JuvenileCounty also operates a Juvenile Detention Facility
Source: Greenville County Detention Center · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗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
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1976 (Building Two, the original facility)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds1,277 rated
Since then
- Building One, 1994 (rated 318)
- Building Four, 2007 (rated 448)
The Sheriff
Sheriff Hobart Lewis
- Runs the jailNo — the detention center is a division of the Greenville County Department of Public Safety (greenvillecounty.org/detentionCenter)
- Shown as'Sheriff H. Lewis' on gcso.org, with a team page link for Hobart Lewis
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Greenville County Sheriff's Office · 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 Greenville County
- Circuit Court: South Carolina's Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, which also serves Pickens. 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 Greenville County magistrates. For most charges a magistrate sets bond soon after arrest.
- 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).
- NoteCouncil minutes page link seen but refused by our reader.
- The boardGreenville County Council
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- What was tried: https://www.gcso.org and http://www.gcso.org refused; https://gcso.org/ root and gcso.org/team/hobart-lewis/ refused.
- Two searches spent: the first returned only spam/aggregator pages; the second (limited to greenvillecounty.org and gcso.org) returned the county detention center pages.
- Opened on greenvillecounty.org: detentionCenter/, AdultFacility.aspx, ContactUs.aspx, Visitation.aspx, Commissary.aspx, Mail.aspx, juveniles.aspx, JuvenileFAQ.aspx.
- Refused by our reader: FAQ.aspx, Telephone.aspx, Money.aspx, Medical.aspx, disclaimer/InmateSearch.aspx, PublicSafety/default.aspx, OrdinancesMinutes.aspx, county home page. FAQ, telephone, money and medical pages may hold fee or bond details not judged here.
- Roster: the county's inmate search at app.greenvillecounty.org is linked from the detention center pages as 'Incarcerated Inmates'; our reader saw only its frameset.
- Commissary page lists a $100 per-order limit and barber charges ($15 haircut, $10 shave/trim); no phone, video-visit, commissary or booking fee rates found on pages opened.
- Commissary vendor named on the county page: jailpackstore.com. No contract document found.
- No budget, PREA, deaths, inspection or bond material found on pages 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 Greenville 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