Dorchester County Detention Center Inmate Lookup

Dorchester County Detention Center Overview

The Dorchester County Detention Center is operated by the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office. Official county material names the facility as the Dorchester County Detention Center, while sheriff news releases also use the L.C. Knight Detention Center name. The facility reference address is 220 Hodge Road, Summerville, SC 29483. The Sheriff's Office public-safety address is nearby at 212 Deming Way, Summerville, SC 29483, which matters because court and clerk services for Dorchester County are often centered in St. George rather than at the jail.

The jail is the correct local custody system for current confinements, new bookings, admits by date range, releases by date range, charge searches, and arresting-agency searches. It holds people arrested by the Sheriff's Office, Summerville, St. George, Ridgeville, Harleyville, state agencies, probation or parole authorities, and other agencies that appear in the roster's arresting-agency options. The official county detention page describes the facility mission as detaining offenders in a secure, safe, humane environment that complies with statutory mandates and constitutional requirements. Public sources did not publish housing-unit names, pod layout, medical-provider details, or a current public security-classification breakdown.

The official county inmate lookup routes users to Southern Software Citizen Connect, where the public page is labeled Inmate Confinements. A person sentenced to the South Carolina Department of Corrections is not searched through this jail roster after transfer. For sentenced state prisoners, use the SCDC incarcerated-inmate search instead of the Dorchester County roster.

Dorchester County Detention Center Capacity and Population

The current Dorchester County detention page did not publish a rated capacity. The available high-authority trend source is the Vera Institute Incarceration Trends county dataset, which lists Dorchester jail rated capacity as 266 for 2016 through 2021 and 264 for 2022 and 2023. A Live 5 News report dated May 29, 2019 quoted Sheriff L.C. Knight saying the jail capacity under state code was 266 inmates and that the population was 260 at that time. Those numbers are useful for context, but a current capacity should be confirmed with the county or inspection records before treating it as today's official rating.

The Citizen Connect current-confinements output showed 334 current inmates when inspected on June 29, 2026. That is a live roster count, not an audited average daily population. Vera's latest 2023 jail population figure was 253 against a listed capacity of 264, or about 95.8% occupancy using that trend dataset. Comparing the June 29, 2026 roster count of 334 to Vera's 2023 capacity of 264 produces about 126.5%, but that comparison depends on whether the current rated capacity has changed.

How to Look Up an Inmate at Dorchester County Detention Center

For someone believed to be in county jail custody, start with the official county-linked Citizen Connect Inmate Confinements roster. The county's own inmate-lookup page redirects to this vendor-hosted roster. The roster can show current inmates, last 24-hour admits, last 7-day admits, admits and releases by date range, name searches, charge searches, and arresting-agency searches. If a person was sentenced to SCDC or transferred to federal or immigration custody, the county roster may no longer be the right source.

The Dorchester County jail inmate records page explains the roster fields in more detail, but the basic search path is direct. Use current confinements first for someone who may still be in the jail, then narrow by date or name. Follow the public date-range warning and keep admit or release searches to 31 days or less. If the web roster does not answer the question, call the detention center at 843-832-0215 or submit a records request through the county's official NextRequest portal.

The screenshot below comes from the official Citizen Connect Inmate Confinements interface, which is the roster channel linked for Dorchester County jail custody.

The tab layout is important because current custody, recent admits, and releases are different searches. A person released from L.C. Knight Detention Center may disappear from the current list while still being findable through a recent release or records-request path.

1. Open the Citizen Connect Inmate Confinements roster for Dorchester County.
2. Choose Current Confinements for active jail custody, or use admit and release tabs for recent movement.
3. Search by first, middle, or last name when the spelling is known, or use charge and arresting-agency options to narrow a broad result set.
4. Open the detail card and compare booked date, arresting agency, arrest date, charges, bond total, and per-charge bond fields when shown.

Dorchester County Detention Center Address and Contact

Use the detention center phone for custody, visitor-entry, mail, or facility-specific questions that are not answered online. Use the sheriff non-emergency number for general Sheriff's Office routing. The county's records page says public records requests for the Sheriff's Office, including detention-center records, must be submitted through the Dorchester County NextRequest portal. South Carolina FOIA timing in the research file is 10 business days for records two years old or less and 20 business days for records more than two years old, excluding weekends and observed holidays.

The jail and sheriff public-safety complex are in Summerville. Do not confuse this with the Dorchester County courthouse and Clerk of Court services in St. George. For bond hearings, the research identifies Central Bond Court at Summerville Magistrates Court in the Troy Knight Judicial Complex, with hearings at 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM daily, including weekends and holidays.

Visiting Someone at Dorchester County Detention Center

No official Dorchester County public visitation schedule, visitor rule sheet, video-visitation vendor, parking instructions, or ADA entry details were found in the inspected county sources. That absence should be treated as a real information gap, not a reason to borrow rules from another jail. Anyone planning a visit should call 843-832-0215 before traveling and confirm whether the person is eligible for visits, whether the visit is in-person or video, what identification is required, where visitors enter, and whether any temporary restriction is in effect.

Bring government photo identification if a visit or public counter trip is confirmed, and avoid taking unnecessary bags or personal items into a secure facility. Official sources did not publish a Dorchester-specific dress code, visitor age rule, appointment cutoff, property rule, or public counter schedule. Those details can change quickly during staffing, security, maintenance, or emergency conditions.

Mail, Phone, and Money at Dorchester County Detention Center

Official Dorchester County pages did not publish an inmate mail format, commissary vendor, deposit vendor, money-transfer fee table, phone provider, video-call provider, or phone-rate page for the detention center. The safest public instruction is to verify directly with the detention center before sending money, mail, books, photographs, or other items. Do not assume that an address format, vendor name, or fee from another South Carolina jail applies to L.C. Knight Detention Center.

If the request concerns an older booking record, a mugshot that is no longer visible online, or a record not displayed by Citizen Connect, use the county's NextRequest records portal. Include the person's name, approximate booking date, booking ID if known, arresting agency if known, and a clear description of the booking or detention record requested.

Booking and Intake at Dorchester County Detention Center

Dorchester County did not publish a detailed booking checklist in the inspected official detention materials, so intake should be described from the public roster outputs and the general local-jail process. After arrest, the arresting agency brings the person to the detention center or another appropriate custody point. Jail intake typically creates the booking record, verifies identity, records the arresting agency and arrest date, collects property, takes a booking photo, completes fingerprints or other identification, screens for medical and safety issues, and begins classification or housing review.

The public Citizen Connect record confirms several intake outputs when available: name, mugshot, demographics, booked date, arresting agency, arrest date/time, bond total, charges, and per-charge bond. Not every card has every field. Some inspected entries had missing agency information, blank arrest time, no bond total, or zero-charge states. Blank fields should not be treated as a legal conclusion, a dismissal, or proof that no other hold exists.

A booking card can include a public detail view with a larger booking photo and charge/bond information. The screenshot below comes from a Citizen Connect booking-detail sample URL pattern documented in the research file.

Booking-detail fields are useful for checking roster charges and bond amounts, but formal court charges may later change in Magistrate Court or General Sessions. For court status after the arrest, use the Dorchester Public Index and the appropriate court or solicitor channels.

About Dorchester County Detention Center

The detention center sits at the local level of Dorchester County's custody system. It is not the same as Lieber Correctional Institution, which is an SCDC state prison in Ridgeville for sentenced male prisoners. It also is not a BOP federal prison or a separate ICE detention facility. Federal, immigration, SCDC, probation, parole, and neighboring-agency labels can still appear in jail data because another agency may be involved in an arrest, hold, detainer, or transfer.

Recent official sheriff news has included detention recruitment, corrections-officer recognition, reaccreditation of the Sheriff's Office, inmate-unresponsive death notices with SLED investigations underway, and a 2026 escape and capture sequence involving custody at Trident Medical Center. South Carolina jail oversight also includes the Jail and Prison Inspection Division under S.C. Code Title 24 Chapter 9, annual inspection authority for local detention facilities, and death-in-custody notice and reporting requirements.

Historical capacity pressure is part of the local record. The 2019 Live 5 News report tied near-capacity conditions to population growth, court backlog, and public-safety workload. Current conditions should still be verified with official county, sheriff, court, or inspection sources because the public roster count is live custody information, not a full operations report.