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

The Detention Center

Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center

Operated byCounty (the county FAQ says 'The County of Orangeburg operates the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center'); the county Departments page separately says the Sheriff's Office 'maintains the County Jail'
Jail phone803-539-2091 (county FAQ); association directory lists 803-539-2090
Regional arrangementNamed as a regional Orangeburg-Calhoun facility on the county site
Bond court'Orangeburg County Bond Court is located in the Orangeburg County Law Complex.' (county Courts page)

Source: Orangeburg County FAQ - Detention Center · checked 2026-09-29

Transparency rating

Not scored. Orangeburg 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 Leroy Ravenell

CurrentNamed in the South Carolina Sheriffs' Association directory; not confirmed on a county page
Runs the jailThe county pages disagree: the county FAQ says 'The County of Orangeburg operates the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center', while the county Departments page says 'The Sheriff's Office maintains the County Jail'

Still needed

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

Source: South Carolina Sheriffs' Association directory · 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 Orangeburg County

Circuit Court: South Carolina's First Judicial Circuit, which also serves Calhoun and Dorchester. 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 Orangeburg 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).
NoteAgenda Center lists County Council agendas and minutes, including June 2026 budget workshops.
The boardOrangeburg County Council →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Examined: county site orangeburgcounty.org opened (home, detention FAQ, Departments, Elected Officials, Courts, Agenda Center pages).
County FAQ names the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center and says the County of Orangeburg operates it (803-539-2091); the Departments page says the Sheriff's Office 'maintains the County Jail'. Both statements are recorded as published.
Courts page says only that Bond Court is in the Orangeburg County Law Complex; no bond-posting guidance found.
Sheriff's Office page https://www.orangeburgcounty.org/469/Sheriffs-Office refused by our reader (robots.txt), so the sheriff's name is from the association directory and no sheriff/detention sub-pages (roster, visitation, PREA, fees) could be checked.
Budget/finance and document pages not reached: https://www.orangeburgcounty.org/Archive.aspx and /DocumentCenter returned HTTP 429; /9/How-Do-I refused (robots.txt). Our reader returned no link URLs from the Departments and Elected Officials pages.
No detention capacity, roster, budget, PREA, fee or inspection material found on the pages that opened.
One WebSearch spent; it returned the county FAQ and news/aggregator pages (only the county FAQ cited).
Not scored: the Sheriff's Office page and the county's document and budget pages refused our reader. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked. Found published on the pages that did open: named.
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 Orangeburg 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