For three months last year, C.C. shared a small cell with five other people at the Scotland County Detention Center. The space had only two beds, so C.C. slept most nights on a thin mat on the cement floor.
C.C., who asked to be identified by their initials and gender-neutral pronouns to protect their identity, said the toilet inside the cell often overflowed and spilled feces onto the floor. Frustrations about the cramped quarters sometimes escalated to confrontations. C.C. said one inmate tried to get them to drink a cup of coffee made with urine. The cell didn’t have an emergency button, so inmates couldn’t easily alert detention officers when there was trouble.
“I remember telling my mom, ‘Mom, I would rather be dead than living in these conditions,” said C.C., who was being held at the jail on drug charges. While C.C. pleaded to lesser charges, they maintain their innocence and said it was only to escape the jail’s conditions.
Many North Carolina jails are overcrowded and plagued with maintenance and supervision issues. The Scotland County Detention, which was built in 1964, is among the most crowded, according to Luke Woollard, an attorney with Disability Rights North Carolina’s prison and jails team.
The jail in Laurinburg is designed for 109 inmates, but it typically houses dozens more. In October 2025, the sheriff’s office had to relocate 40 people to facilities across the state due to severe overcrowding and a shortage of detention officers. State records show an average of 194 inmates were held there in June–the highest number in almost a decade.
The Scotland County jail has not passed a state inspection since 2022, records show. Inspectors last year said detention officers didn’t conduct mandated supervision rounds, and cameras inside several cells weren’t working. The showers had evidence of mold and mildew, and cells were dirty and covered in graffiti. Inspectors noted some of the same issues in February.
Over the last decade, inspections have flagged rusting vents, peeling paint, water damage, broken locks, lights, and glass.
Now, Scotland County Sheriff Ralph Kersey and some county leaders say the situation is so dire that the facility needs to be renovated or replaced right away. Kersey warned county commissioners in June that conditions are similar to those that led to the recent incident at the Bertie-Martin Regional Jail, where 88 inmates gained control of the facility and held two detention officers hostage.
“The number one job in running the detention center is safety for the inmate and for the staff,” said John Hunt, a sheriff’s office captain who oversees the Scotland County Detention Center. “The overcrowding has resulted in an increase in inmate-on-inmate assaults, staff use of force, and extra staff needed to secure the facility.”
‘Never-Ending Cycle’
Scotland had the 18th-highest incarceration rate among the state’s 100 counties in 2024, according to Healthy Communities NC. That year, the county had the sixth-highest overall crime rate in the state, data from the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation shows.
Meanwhile, Scotland County is the second-poorest in the state. Counties across the United States with high rates of poverty also tend to have high jail populations, according to a 2019 study by the Vera Institute, a criminal justice research and advocacy organization.
When people can’t afford bond for low-level offenses, they are forced to sit in jail while their cases wind through the legal system.
On average, almost 100 people are admitted to the Scotland County jail every month, confinement reports dating back to 2016 show. Far fewer people are released or sent to state facilities to serve post-conviction sentences. On average, 113 inmates were carried over from month to month over the last decade.
“Our ratio going out is way less than what we have coming in,” said sheriff’s Lt. Seaira Smith, assistant administrator of the jail. “We get four out a month to prison, and we get four in a night. It’s just a never-ending cycle.”
In July, local District Attorney Jamie Adams told the Scotland County Board of Commissioners that the state prison system’s limited bed space is contributing to jail overcrowding.
Between 2024 and 2025, there were nearly 1,400 fewer beds available for inmates in state prisons because of ongoing staffing shortages, the N.C. Department of Adult Correction told the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety in January. Adams said several people convicted in Scotland and Richmond counties months ago were still waiting for a space in prison.
“There are so many people that haven’t seen the light of day in years. I’d be upset too if I didn’t know what fresh air felt like.”
1st Sgt. Precious McNeil
Iryna’s Law is making the problem worse, according to jail administrators. The law, which the General Assembly passed last fall, limits pretrial release of alleged violent offenders and eliminates written promises to appear in court. As of July 31, most of the 178 inmates at the Scotland County jail were accused of violent offenses and cannot be released, Adams said in a Facebook post.
Staffing Shortages
Typically, three detention officers work each 12-hour shift at the Scotland County Detention Center, but Kersey said there should be at least four. One monitors the cameras from a small control room. The others process new inmates, transport inmates to court, and conduct supervision rounds.
Under state law, detention officers must check on inmates at least twice an hour, with no more than 40 minutes between rounds. The state cited the Scotland County jail eight times in the last decade for failing to properly conduct and log supervision rounds. In 2022, a state inspector found gaps in supervision as long as 50 minutes. The same year, 31-year-old Ricardo Jones was found dead in his cell.
With limited staff, inmates don’t get many opportunities to leave their cells. Since a detention officer was assaulted in July, inmates must remain locked in their cells from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. The facility doesn’t have a recreation yard, anyway.
“There are so many people that haven’t seen the light of day in years, that have been here 15,000 days,” said 1st Sgt. Precious McNeil, who is responsible for running the jail’s daily operations. “I’d be upset too if I didn’t know what fresh air felt like.”
Woollard, the attorney with Disability Rights North Carolina, said such conditions are not conducive with rehabilitation.
“A properly run jail or prison should give people the tools to function and thrive in society once released, not leave them worse off than when they went in,” Woollard said. “Ensuring the bodily safety of people in custody is a huge part of that goal and is nearly impossible to achieve in an overcrowded facility.”
Kersey, who is not seeking reelection this year, said he asked county commissioners repeatedly over his 12 years as sheriff for money to hire more help. In July, county commissioners approved four new detention officer positions and an additional $40,000 in part-time staffing. As of July 28, the county had hired three of the four new positions.
“There’s no magic solution to this.”
County Commissioner Ed O’Neal
But detention officers also struggle with the facility’s poor conditions. Rats live in the unfinished top floor of the jail and sometimes die in the air vents. Kersey said the air inside the building is so humid that paint peels off the walls every few months.
Last year, the county spent over $100,000 in repairs and maintenance at the jail, according to County Manager April Snead.
“I just really wish that the outside world could see what we really deal with,” Smith said, “because we’re here to make sure that these individuals stay here to keep the community safe.”
Tear It Down?
Some sheriff’s office employees and former inmates say the jail, which was expanded in 1994, should be torn down.
“It should have been shut down a long time ago, for the conditions to be as bad as they were while I was in there,” C.C. said. “It should have been taken care of a long time ago.”
A new facility would cost millions of dollars, however, and Scotland County is already strapped for cash. Still, County Commissioner Ed O’Neal says the board must stop “kicking the can” and waiting until the jail is “an absolute crisis.”
“The cost of waiting to do it, waiting to take the decision and make it happen, only gets more expensive,” said O’Neal, who serves as vice chair of the board. “It only gets more difficult.”
Last year, O’Neal proposed that Scotland and neighboring Richmond counties split the cost to build a regional jail. But Richmond officials scrapped the idea in March, saying they would continue to pay other counties to house the overflow of inmates.
O’Neal now wants Scotland County to renovate its existing facility and build a new jail with 125 to 150 beds next door. Under the plan, the county could accommodate at least 225 inmates, he said.
One potential problem with the plan: The site on Biggs Street is prone to flooding. Detention officers had to evacuate the jail’s 106 inmates during Hurricane Florence in 2018. The Laurinburg Fire Department rebuilt the neighboring North Fire Station outside the flood zone after it was destroyed in the storm.
“Why would you put a building right back in the floodplain that you knew just flooded a couple of years ago?” asked Chief Deputy Darryl Ford.
The county plans to hire a company to conduct a feasibility study. O’Neal and other commissioners say once they get the results of the study, they can ask state legislators for money to help build or renovate. Rep. Garland Pierce, a Democrat who is seeking reelection in November to represent Hoke and Scotland counties in the state House, said the county must be willing to invest in the project.
In the delayed state budget the General Assembly passed this summer, only two counties received funding to improve their jails. Beaufort got $180,000 for a mobile kitchen, and Pamlico got $757,200 for capital improvements.
With or without state funding, O’Neal said the county will likely need to borrow money to pay for the jail.
“It’s easy to see that this is a problem that’s only going to get bigger in the future,” O’Neal said. “It’s not going to heal itself. There’s no magic solution to this. We have to just be honest with ourselves and deal with it.”