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

The Detention Center

Kershaw County Detention Center

Operated byNot the Sheriff's Office (per the sheriff's site); the sheriff's site links to the county government's Detention Center department page, which our reader could not open
Jail address101 Bramblewood Plantation Road, Camden, SC 29020
Jail phone803-425-1516, Option #9 (8:30 AM - 5:00 PM Monday - Friday)
Inmate listSheriff's detention page links a 'Kershaw County Inmate List' (kershaw-so-sc.zuercherportal.com)

Source: Kershaw County Sheriff's Office - Detention Center · checked 2026-09-29

Transparency rating

Not scored. Kershaw County's and its sheriff's own websites could not be reached or read in the session that produced this record, so their disclosures were never examined. This is a gap in the research, not a finding about the county.

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 Lee Boan

CurrentSheriff's own site: 'Kershaw County Sheriff Lee Boan was sworn into office in January 2019.'
Runs the jailNo — the sheriff's detention page says 'The Kershaw County Detention Center is not under the jurisdiction of the Kershaw County Sheriff's Office.'

Still needed

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

Source: Kershaw 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 Kershaw County

Circuit Court: South Carolina's Fifth Judicial Circuit, which also serves Richland. 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 Kershaw 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).
NoteCounty government site pages refused our reader (403); council page and minutes not opened.
The boardKershaw County Council
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

Examined: sheriff's site kershawsheriff.com opened (home, about, detention center, policies pages).
Sheriff's detention page names the Kershaw County Detention Center (101 Bramblewood Plantation Road, Camden) and states it is not under the sheriff's jurisdiction; it links a 'Kershaw County Inmate List' and the county's Detention Center department page.
Roster credited from the sheriff page's 'Kershaw County Inmate List' link; the list itself (kershaw-so-sc.zuercherportal.com) was refused by our reader (robots.txt).
County site kershaw.sc.gov: home page opened but our reader returned no links; the supplied Detention Center department page and a linked county document (showpublisheddocument/11230) returned HTTP 403, so the county's detention department, budget and council pages were not examined. Budget, capacity, PREA, fees and other county-side checks are 'no' only for the sheriff site; the county site could not be checked.
Sheriff policy manual page lists six policies (recruitment, internal affairs, use of force, pursuits, early warning, body cameras); none on detention.
What was tried and refused: https://www.kershaw.sc.gov/government/departments-r-z/safety-and-emergency-services/detention-center (403, with and without www); https://www.kershaw.sc.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/11230/637111536388700000 (403); https://kershaw-so-sc.zuercherportal.com/#/inmates (robots.txt).
One WebSearch spent; results were news and aggregator pages (not cited).
Not scored: the county's own Detention Center department page (the jail is a county department) returned an error to our reader. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked. Found published on the pages that did open: named, roster.
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 Kershaw 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