The Detention Center
Jasper County Detention Center
- Operated bySheriff's Office
- Jail address12008 North Jacob Smart Blvd, Ridgeland, SC 29936 (P.O. Drawer 2140)
- LocationOff I-95, Exit 22, with the Jasper County Law Enforcement Building
- Phone / booking(843) 717-3300
- Operator"The Detention Center is operated by the Jasper County Sheriff's Office."
- Older county pageA second county page (jaspercountysc.gov/detention-center) says the center is operated by Director Arthur Benjamin and Captain Harry Orr, with 32 detention officers and 3 administrative staff; it does not carry a date
- FY2025 amended budgetDetention Center (Dept 058) $4,658,386, including an 'Inmate Housing' line of $450,000; Sheriff (Dept 057) $9,928,300
- Phone rates$0.20 per minute local, in-state and out-of-state; $0.35 international; no connection fees
Source: Jasper County Detention Center page · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗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
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
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 Chris Malphrus
- CurrentNamed as County Sheriff on the Jasper County Sheriff's Office page (county site)
- Runs the jailYes — county detention center page: "The Detention Center is operated by the Jasper County Sheriff's Office."
- Association directory spellingChristopher Malphrus
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Jasper County Sheriff's Office (county site) · 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 Jasper County
- Circuit Court: South Carolina's Fourteenth Judicial Circuit, which also serves Hampton, Allendale, Beaufort and Colleton. 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 Jasper 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).
- The boardJasper County Council →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Rescue pass: county site jaspercountysc.gov opened (sheriff, detention center and its sub-pages, bond court, budgets-and-audits, council pages).
- Current detention center page states the center is operated by the Jasper County Sheriff's Office; an older, undated county page names a Director and Captain, so no jail administrator is recorded.
- Roster: the detention center page links an 'Inmate Inquiry System' (ArcGIS); the link itself was refused by our reader.
- Bond court page (county site) gives hours, says hearings are held each morning at about 10:00 a.m., that bond may be paid by money order, and that the Detention Center has a list of local bondsmen.
- Phone call rates are published; commissary and money deposits go through outside vendors linked from the county page.
- FY2025 amended budget worksheet on the county site shows the Detention Center and Sheriff departments. The FY2025-2026 ordinance PDF had no readable text.
- No capacity, PREA, inspection report, death record or contract found on the pages read.
- What was tried: the ArcGIS inmate inquiry link was refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED); the sheriff URL from the prompt was refused once, then opened via the county home page link.
- 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 Jasper 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