A Look inside Spartanburg Detention Facility

PHOTO BY JAY KING

Spartanburg County Detention Capt. Teresa Speller, right, checks a prisoner's records as Melissa Ward and Victoria Carswell key in the information taken from arrestees in the booking area of the jail.

There are many stereotypes about what goes on in a jail and about the nature of the people who work there, and as is the case with nearly all stereotypes, the ones people nurture about jails are largely false.

For anyone who wishes to understand what goes on in the Spartanburg County Detention Facility, the logical starting place is the booking area. Spending a few hours observing what goes on at this portal to the jail is eye opening, not only about the jail's inner workings, but in a larger sense, about human nature as well.

As Capt. Teresa Speller explains, the booking area is where everyone who comes into the "business end" of the jail starts out. Speller is a self-possessed, even elegant, woman who carries an air of authority about her that no amount of law enforcement equipment or shouting could bestow. Detention Facility Director Larry Powers says Speller is the reason jail operations run as smoothly as they do, and after observing her interactions with both detention officers and inmates, it's easy to see why.

Standing behind the elevated desk that commands the entire intake area, Speller explains that contrary to what people might expect, weekdays are the busiest at the jail, whether it's because county deputies are more successful picking up people wanted on warrants or because municipal courts send more people to jail during that time.

"By far those guys (pointing to a sheriff's deputy) keep us the busiest," Speller says with a wry smile. "They don't let up."

As Speller walks away to attend to one thing or another in a seemingly chaotic but nevertheless orderly process, Capt. Percy Miller takes her place and continues to explain what is happening. As a Lyman officer collects a couple of prisoners, Miller explains that municipalities are responsible for transporting prisoners to and from the jail on cases made within that municipality.

Miller is jovial and laughs easily, and within minutes he steps in to process a prisoner being brought in by a deputy. Like the handful of other detention officers working on the intake side of the counter, Miller calmly asks an arrestee the standard series of questions: do you have any tatoos, if so where; have you ever had any mental health counseling; have you ever considered committing suicide; are you currently on any medications; and do you have any enemies within this facility, among others.

The people he and others must question in this way run the gamut in terms of race, sex and apparent economic status. Most are sober and resigned to their fate, but a few are bombed on one substance or another while one or two seem about to take exception to the way they are being treated.

This night nothing comes of it, but both Speller and Miller say there are some people who come through the door looking for trouble. Fortunately, they are more the exception than the rule, the captains explain.

The one certain thing about entering the detention facility, no matter through which door, is that virtually every door in the place is locked at all times. It is, after all, a jail designed to control the freedom of movement of the people housed there. Director Powers explains that good behavior is rewarded by less restrictions on a prisoner's movement within the jail while bad behavior translates into tighter and tighter confinement.

"There have to be consequences to how they behave," Powers says. "Since we obviously can't beat them when they get out of line, we restrict their access to things like the canteen, the common areas and the phones."

Miller says that it boils down to the fact that a prisoner is treated with as much or as little respect as they're willing to let the detention officers show them.

Miller explains that the way the system works at the Spartanburg County Detention Facility is all prisoners are fully booked in before arraignment. Arrestees are brought in through the sally port on one end of the booking area before they are searched, relieved of their possessions and questioned. They are then sent to take a seat in a divided sunken holding area to wait before the next stage in their processing.

Throughout the night people will move steadily from one part of the holding area to an adjacent area called "the pit" where they await summons before the judge to find out whether they will be released on their own recognizance or given a bond. Speller explains that those who have the white piece of paper signifying a PR bond are generally processed out at this point. For the rest, it's shower time.

By this point most have had the chance to make their phone call. Miller explains that for those given a bond, the staff usually waits between one to two hours before sending them back to one of the pods in order that they might have ample time to arrange for someone to come get them out. This is why, he explains, it is imperative to call someone most apt to go the bail.

"I tell them this is your one phone call, so call some person who's likely to come get you out," Miller says. He adds that many times prisoners are in fact allowed an additional call to try to make bail before being fully processed.

"We give them really an overabundance of phone calls," he says. "They have plenty of chances to get out."

Whether the prisoner makes bail or goes inside for a stay on the county's time and dime, Miller says that a majority of the people he sees week in and week out tend to be repeat offenders. This fact is attested to by the insistent buzz of a printer rasping back and forth across pages of paper as a computer prints NCIC reports on the people being booked in. Between the prisoners themselves telling officers they have been arrested before and the seeming reams of paper stacking up as each prisoner's record is printed, it is readily apparent that most who are there for booking are frequent fliers.

While completing paperwork between prisoners, officer Tracy Christian offers some observations about the people who come through the door at the jail. She says that for a surprising number of prisoners, it's no big thing to wind up in jail.

"It's like a spa for them," she says. "They've got everything taken care of and it really doesn't cost them anything."

The fact that many prisoners keep coming back to the jail, whether for "three hots and a cot" as Miller calls it, or because they simply can't stay away from trouble, means there is always a demand for space behind county bars.

"It doesn't matter if we let 20 go, 25 will show up," Miller says.

(This is the first in a series of articles in which Hometown News will take a look at the people and responsibilities of the Spartanburg County Detention Facility)