CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – The Horry County Sheriff’s Office is working with the solicitor to plan a mass arraignment with the goal of getting more violent criminals transferred from jail to prison.
Fifteenth Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson says his office hasn’t done a mass arraignment in more than five years. However, the sheriff’s office says the population at J. Reuben Long Detention Center has gotten so high that it’s now necessary.
Chief Deputy Tom Fox says the jail’s population recently reached 900. The max capacity is 1000.
“Over the last 18 months, there’s been a sizeable increase in the jail population,” admits Fox. “We’ll put them on a track to either go to trial or plead, and it will help purge the jail a little bit.”
Solicitor Richardson will hold a mass arraignment for nearly 100 inmates who have been in jail six months or longer. According to Richardson, most are accused of violent crimes.
“There’s a backlog, and it’s with the more complicated more violent cases,” reveals Richardson. “There will be armed robberies, murders, burglaries. Those charges are probably what you will see more of, and much less of breaking into automobiles or bad checks.”
Richardson says the longer these inmates stay in jail, the harder it is to carry out a proper trial.
“Witnesses tend to get missing after a year or two years,” admits Richardson.
The strain on law enforcement also increases as detectives spend more time on a handful of cases which he says will have a direct impact on safety in Horry County.
“I think anytime you can get those cases off to prison, you free up law enforcement to do other things,” says Richardson. “We have taken a huge amount of those worst of the worst players, off the street. Anytime we can get those that are causing the majority of the problem away from the communities, the communities are safer.”
Richardson says the mass arraignment will be held in December.