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

The Detention Center

Newberry County Detention Center

Operated bySheriff's Office
Jail address3239 Louis Rich Drive, Newberry, SC 29108
Phone(803) 321-2141
Rated capacityLicensed to house 134 inmates
Staff32 officers including administrative staff
BookingsAverages approximately 2,400 bookings per year
Jail AdministratorCaptain Daniel Floyd (named as Jail Division contact)

Source: Newberry County Sheriff's Office - Jail Division page · 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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Newberry 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
BedsLicensed to house 134 inmates

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Lee Foster

Runs the jailYes - the Newberry County Detention Center is listed as a Sheriff's Office division (Jail) on the county site
Office address550 Wilson Road, Newberry, SC 29108

Still needed

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

Source: Newberry County Sheriff's Office - Detention Center 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 Newberry County

Circuit Court: South Carolina's Eighth Judicial Circuit, which also serves Abbeville, Greenwood and Laurens. 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 Newberry 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 boardNewberry County Council
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

Sheriff's site newberrycountysheriff.com refused; research done on the county's own site newberrycounty.gov (Sheriff's Office section).
Detention center page offers an inmate search for people in custody or released in the last 90 days, video visitation scheduling, inmate deposits and a list of bail bonding companies.
Bond page, deposit page, visitation page, inmate-search page, sheriff's office main page and agendas-minutes page were refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED); bond_info and fees scored no from the detention page only, which lists bondsmen and gives no rates.
Sheriff's divisions page (https://newberrycounty.gov/node/169) describes the jail as housing approximately 125 inmates.
Association directory names Major Garrett Lominack for the detention center; the county's own jail page names Captain Daniel Floyd as contact.
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 Newberry 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