The Detention Center
Williamsburg County Detention Center
- Operated bySheriff's Office
- Jail address200 South Jackson Street, Kingstree, SC 29556 (county detention center page)
- Jail phone843-355-9696 (county staff directory)
- Rated capacity205 bed spaces (county detention center page)
- Staffing4 shifts of Detention Deputies plus day command staff (county page)
- VisitationSaturdays 10am-3pm (last names A-M), Sundays 10am-3pm (N-Z) (county staff directory)
- Jail AdministratorNadia Pressley, Administrator (county staff directory, Detention Center)
Source: Williamsburg County - Detention Center page · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗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 builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds205 bed spaces (county detention center page)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Clemson Wright, Jr. (Interim Sheriff)
- CurrentNamed in the South Carolina Sheriffs' Association directory; not confirmed on a county page
- Runs the jailSheriff's Office — the county site lists the Detention Center as a division of the Sheriff's Office, and the staff directory lists it as Detention Center (Sheriff's Office)
- 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 Williamsburg County
- Circuit Court: South Carolina's Third Judicial Circuit, which also serves Lee, Clarendon and Sumter. 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 Williamsburg 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 page lists County Supervisor Kelvin C. Washington and seven district members; agendas and minutes are in the county Agenda Center (not opened).
- The boardWilliamsburg County Council →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Examined: county site williamsburgcounty.sc.gov opened (home, government, sheriff pages 543/159/561, divisions, detention center, PREA, staff directory for sheriff and detention center, elected officials, county council, budget office, special fees, recent news items).
- Detention center page names the Williamsburg County Detention Center, a 205 bed space facility in Kingstree; the county lists it as a division of the Sheriff's Office. Staff directory lists Nadia Pressley as Administrator.
- PREA page and linked PREA policy (Williamsburg County Detention Center, dated Oct 1, 2015, reviewed Mar 1, 2016) are posted on the county site.
- Sheriff: none of the county's sheriff, about-us, divisions, directory or elected-officials pages names the sheriff, so the interim sheriff is recorded from the association directory and not confirmed on a county page.
- Budget: the Budget Office posts FY2026-27, FY2025-26, FY2024-25, 2023-24 and 2022-23 budget PDFs, but all opened as image-only files with no readable text, so the sheriff/detention line could not be checked; not scored yes. Worth a manual look.
- Special Fees document lists no jail, booking or inmate fees. No roster, bond guidance, inspection report, contracts or death-in-custody material found on the county site.
- The one search returned mostly aggregator pages (ignored); county pages were reached through the association page link and the county home page.
- Search used: 1 (this county).
- 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 Williamsburg 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