SCDC

So far, South Carolina’s correctional system has managed to duck the high infection rates plaguing prisons in states like Ohio and Mississippi. According to Bryan Stirling, director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, 35 of the department's nearly 5,000 staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus. Three of those work at Kirkland Correctional Institution, where a 69-year-old inmate with pre-existing health conditions, has tested positive. As of this report, the inmate is in the hospital and is the sole positive among the inmate population in the state.

SCDC also has had one death – a guard at Lee Correctional. His family has requested that he not be further identified, but Stirling confirmed that the guard did die from COVID-19.

Manning Reentry/Work Release Center used to have another name. Until 2016, this nearly 60-year-old prison on the outskirts of Columbia was called Manning Correctional.

That might seem like a minor change. It’s not. It was the South Carolina Department of Corrections’ (SCDC) way of saying to the public and to Manning’s inmates that the perception, treatment, and, ultimately, rehabilitation of the men who do time there was going to change.