Horry County - J. Reuben Long Detention Center

The J. Reuben Long Detention Center is the main county jail for Horry County, South Carolina — the coastal county that includes Myrtle Beach and much of South Carolina's Grand Strand tourism corridor. Located at 4150 J. Reuben Long Avenue in Conway (the Horry County seat), the detention center is overseen by the Horry County Sheriff's Office and has an approximate capacity of 480 detainees. Because Horry County's population swings dramatically with the tourism season, the jail's booking volume also fluctuates — from steadier winter loads to substantial spring-break and summer season increases. This guide covers current visitation (available Monday through Sunday with the notable requirement that visitors present South Carolina ID), McDaniel Supply Company for online deposits, JailATM.com as an alternative deposit option, mail rules, and phone service.

About the J. Reuben Long Detention Center

The J. Reuben Long Detention Center serves as Horry County's main detention facility, named for the county's longtime former sheriff. The jail operates on a roughly 480-bed capacity and handles pretrial detainees on state and county charges, people serving short county sentences, and various state and federal holds. Because Horry County includes Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand tourism area, the facility sees seasonal booking surges, particularly during spring break, summer tourism season, and Bike Week rallies — families should be aware that visitor demand and processing times can be higher during those peak periods.

Every inmate at the detention center has a booking number assigned at intake. That number, plus the full legal name used at booking, is required on every letter, deposit, and visit registration. Confirm current custody status through the Horry County Sheriff's inmate lookup or on AllRecentArrests.us before mailing or planning a visit.

Visitation at J. Reuben Long: seven days a week, SC ID required

The J. Reuben Long Detention Center allows visitors to see inmates from Monday through Sunday with visitation available every day of the week — a more accommodating schedule than many county jails offer. However, two rules to note: only one visitor is allowed per visit period, and visitors must present a South Carolina ID. That South Carolina ID requirement is unusual and can catch out-of-state family members who arrive with only a driver's license from their home state; if you are from out of state and expect to visit regularly, contact the Sheriff's Office at (843) 915-5140 ahead of time to confirm whether alternate identification (US passport, military ID, etc.) is acceptable and under what circumstances.

Confirm the current visit hours, whether visits are on-site video, remote video, or in-person contact, and any pre-scheduling requirements by calling the jail before you travel. Bring a valid photo ID and follow the sheriff's dress-code and behavior rules.

How to send money to a J. Reuben Long inmate

Horry County uses multiple deposit channels for inmate commissary and communications accounts:

• McDaniel Supply Company — online deposits through the McDaniel Supply inmate-deposit portal, with service fees that may apply
• JailATM.com — online deposits available as an alternative to McDaniel Supply
• Lobby kiosk at the detention center — accepts card deposits with a posted per-transaction fee

Standard per-transaction fees apply and scale with deposit amount, so consolidating into fewer larger deposits reduces total fees. Deposits fund the trust and commissary balance and can also fund the phone account. Balances stay with the inmate during their stay at the detention center and are returned at release. If your loved one is transferred to South Carolina DOC state prison after sentencing, the balance is refunded and you re-fund the new state DOC account separately. Our overview of how to send money to an inmate compares options.

Mail to a J. Reuben Long inmate

The detention facility encourages family and friends to maintain contact with detainees through the mail, though all mail is inspected for restricted goods. Personal mail goes to Inmate Name and Booking Number, J. Reuben Long Detention Center, 4150 J. Reuben Long Avenue, Conway, SC 29526. Include your full return address. Confirm the current mail policy on the Horry County Sheriff's website before sending, particularly if the county has moved to a scanning-vendor model — many South Carolina county jails have shifted personal mail to services like Smart Communications, Securus Digital Mail Center, or TextBehind in recent years.

Follow standard prohibited-items rules: no cash, personal checks, stamps, stickers, glitter, glue, tape, staples, paperclips, Polaroids, hardcover books, musical or embellished cards, or anything with electronics. Legal mail from an attorney or court, clearly marked as legal correspondence, is opened only in the inmate's presence. Our how to send mail to an inmate covers the format.

Phone service: outgoing calls only

Detainees at J. Reuben Long cannot receive incoming calls — they can only make outgoing calls during specified times, which are either collect or prepaid through the service provider engaged by the sheriff. Family members set up a prepaid account with the sheriff's contracted phone vendor and register the phone numbers the inmate will call. This is standard for county jails but worth stating explicitly because families sometimes expect to be able to reach their loved one by phone directly — that route is not available. For urgent family emergencies, contact the jail at (843) 915-5140 and ask that a chaplain or unit staff relay the message. Our guide to calling an inmate covers setup.

Court dates, bond, and release in Horry County

South Carolina criminal cases in Horry County are handled through the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court of South Carolina (general sessions for felonies) and Horry County magistrate courts (misdemeanors and preliminary matters), with case records searchable through the South Carolina Judicial Department's Public Index. Bond decisions in South Carolina can be handled through commercial surety with a licensed South Carolina bail bondsman (typically for a 10-15 percent non-refundable premium), through cash bond, or, in some cases, on personal recognizance. If your loved one has been arrested, look them up on the sheriff's inmate lookup and use the Public Index to check case status.

A county detention centre is not part of the state prison system

The J. Reuben Long Detention Center is run by Horry County, not by the South Carolina Department of Corrections. The distinction decides a great deal. The state department takes adults sentenced to more than three months; anyone awaiting trial, or serving a shorter sentence, stays at county level. So a search of the state department's records will not find someone held here, and the county sets its own visiting, phone and deposit rules.

The services provided here are pretrial detention for Horry County, short sentences served locally and holding before transfer to state custody after sentencing. That is a clinical remit rather than a custodial one — people are here because of a medical or behavioural health need, not because this is where they are held.

The system the J. Reuben Long Detention Center belongs to

the J. Reuben Long Detention Center is one institution inside a much larger system. As of February 15, 2026 the department held 17,529 people across all of its facilities, across the department's total jurisdiction.

Within its own institutions the department counted 15,630 men and 1,425 women. South Carolina's state system takes adults aged 17 and over sentenced to more than three months, so shorter sentences stay at county level — which is why a county detention centre and the state department hold quite different populations.

The department operates 21 institutions with roughly 4,500 employees. A county detention centre, by contrast, holds people awaiting trial and those serving short sentences, and is run by the county rather than the state.

System size is not trivia when you are trying to plan. A department this large moves people to wherever a suitable bed exists, which is why a transfer can be announced with little notice and can put hundreds of miles between a family and a visiting room. It is also why program and education waitlists are measured in months: the queue is set by system-wide demand, not by how helpful the staff at one institution are willing to be.

Why federal jail statistics do not cover this facility

If you go looking for federal jail statistics on Horry County, you will not find any. The Bureau of Justice Statistics Census of Jails for 2019 counted jails in 46 states — and Horry County is not among them. That is not a gap in the data. It is a direct consequence of the unified system: a jail census counts locally-run jails, and Horry County has none to count.

The practical effect is that the comparisons available in other states — this county jail against that one, rated capacity against peak population — simply do not apply here. There is one operator, and its own reporting is the only source. When you see a directory listing a "county jail" in Horry County, it is almost always mislabelling a state facility.

It also means the agency itself is the single point of contact for everything: locating someone, visiting, mail, deposits and complaints all run through the same department rather than being split between a sheriff and a state corrections office.

How the J. Reuben Long Detention Center is inspected

South Carolina inspects its local jails through a Jail and Prison Inspection Division established under the Department of Corrections. The division inspects — alongside a representative of the State Fire Marshal — every facility in the state holding prisoners or pretrial detainees, whether it is run by a state agency, a county, a municipality or any other political subdivision. The requirement comes from Title 24, Chapter 9 of the South Carolina Code of Laws.

• Inspections happen at least annually and cover all phases of operation, fire safety, and health and sanitation conditions.
• Standards are set by the South Carolina Association of Counties and adopted by the Department of Corrections, alongside the applicable fire and health codes.
• Three separate written reports are produced: one by the inspection division, one by the inspecting fire marshal, and one by the food service inspector from the state health department.

The enforcement route is worth knowing. If an inspection finds a local facility failing the minimum standards, the Director of the Department of Corrections notifies the governing body of the political subdivision responsible for it — the county council or city council, not the jail. That means an elected body receives the finding directly, which is a more useful pressure point than the facility itself.

This matters more than most oversight machinery, because an inspection report is a document you can ask for. If you have a concern about conditions that the jail itself will not address — sanitation, medical access, overcrowding, safety — asking whether the facility's most recent inspection raised it, and requesting that report, is a concrete step that carries more weight than a phone complaint. Reports are generally public records.

Emergencies, safety concerns, and your first steps

For urgent family emergencies such as a death, serious illness, or birth, call the detention center at (843) 915-5140 with the inmate's name and booking number and ask that a chaplain or unit staff relay the message. If you are worried about a loved one's medical care, mental health, or safety inside, contact the sheriff's office directly, keep a written record, and follow up in writing if the initial response is inadequate.

Be cautious about paying third-party sites — the Horry County Sheriff's inmate lookup, McDaniel Supply Company or JailATM.com for deposits, and the sheriff's contracted phone vendor are the authoritative and only fully reliable channels. If someone you love has just been booked into the J. Reuben Long Detention Center, focus first on the essentials: confirm booking through the sheriff's inmate lookup and note the booking number, plan to bring South Carolina ID (or verify alternate ID acceptance) for visits, fund an initial deposit through McDaniel Supply Company or JailATM.com, register your phone number with the sheriff's contracted phone vendor for calls, and mail to 4150 J. Reuben Long Avenue with legal mail clearly marked. Look up the case number on the SC Judicial Public Index and, if bond is set, contact a licensed South Carolina bail bondsman. If your loved one is transferred to SC DOC state prison after sentencing, our overviews of life after prison, finding work after prison, and applying for SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF after release cover what comes next.

Grand Strand tourism season and jail volume

The J. Reuben Long Detention Center's booking volume varies dramatically with the Grand Strand tourism cycle. Spring break (particularly late February through mid-April), Memorial Day through Labor Day summer season, and specific event weekends like the Myrtle Beach Bike Week rallies drive significant surges in arrests — from public-intoxication and DUI cases to more serious charges. During these peak periods, expect longer processing times if your loved one has just been booked, higher visitor demand competing for slots, and slower response times for administrative questions. Off-peak fall and winter typically see calmer operations and quicker response times. If your family member has been arrested during a tourism-peak weekend, patience during the first 24-48 hours is often necessary while intake catches up with the volume.

Interacting with the Horry County Sheriff's Office

The Horry County Sheriff's Office runs the detention center alongside its other patrol and administrative functions. If your loved one has been arrested by Myrtle Beach PD, Conway PD, or another municipal agency within Horry County, he will typically be transferred to J. Reuben Long for booking after any short-term hold at the municipal facility. Because the tourism area attracts visitors from across the East Coast, out-of-state families should plan around the South Carolina ID requirement for visits: bring a US passport, military ID, or other secondary photo ID and confirm acceptance by phone before making the drive to Conway.