Policies/Procedures
| Tracking # |
F2300658 |
| Submitted | Nov. 26, 2023 |
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Communications
From: Patrick Wells
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the South Carolina Public Records Law, I hereby request the following records:
The current policies, procedures, and/or general orders for the Charleston County Sheriff's Office. If the policies regarding the Detention Center operations are separate from the policies regarding Law Enforcement operations, I only request the policies regarding Law Enforcement.
The requested records will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes. I note that the other three major law enforcement agencies in the area already publish their policies on their respective web sites for the public to view. In the spirit of transparency and public service, should you decide to align with this practice and publish your policies on your website, please consider this request fulfilled by providing me with the appropriate link to these documents.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days.
Sincerely,
Patrick Wells
From: Patrick Wells
Good morning,
I have not received a response or determination letter, has one been sent? Thank you,
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
The response is due today. We are working on this as we will need to send an estimate of which, 25% will be due before production. We do not have a printed copy of all policies, they are on our intranet. I will have to tally up the number of pages and create an estimate invoice.
Karli Maratea
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~WRD1012
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
The estimate invoice is attached.
We have also attached the 25% deposit invoice. Once the deposit is paid, we will begin production.
The deposit can be paid by cash or check and can be paid in person or mailed. If mailing the deposit, please use the address info on the invoice and be sure to direct the outer envelope to my attention. Karli Maratea
Karli Maratea
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~WRD2594
From: Patrick Wells
Good afternoon,
I do not request printed copies of the records. I request electronic transmission of the records, therefore copy fees do not apply per S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-30(B).
The records may be emailed as an attachment or uploaded at the link provided below this message. I can also provide a USB drive to where the records may be electronically copied.
Thank you,
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
Understood. The invoice did not include any charges for paper copies. The charges are for our copies that will be printed, redacted, and filed.
Karli Maratea
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~WRD2267
From: Patrick Wells
Good afternoon,
Can you please expand on why your agency requires printing copies of electronic records to redact?
Are you estimating that all 1683 pages require redaction?
Thanks,
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
The files are collected from the applicable department and redacted. A hard copy of the entire request file (including all emails and research information) is kept for a year.
The documents that I most recently sent to you all, were at no charge by my choice. Despite having to copy and redact at least one of those reports, I chose not to charge because I was backed up and it was easier on my end than the billing, etc. that is otherwise required.
Requests will not always be free.
An estimate is just that, an estimate. It is, to the best of our knowledge, without physically going through the research and redactions, what we predict to be the outcome. Since only 25% is due before production, there is wriggle room if the production requires less.
Karli Maratea
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~WRD4012
From: Patrick Wells
Good afternoon,
1 - I have never requested a record from your agency before. Thank you for your consideration to others in previous requests submitted via the MuckRock platform, but I was not involved. I have no expectation that requests will always be free. On the contrary, I am very familiar with the search/retrieval/redaction fees permitted by statute and expect they will be assessed. That is not the case here.
2 - Pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-30(B), regarding copy fees, they "may not apply to records that are transmitted in an electronic format". Attempting to charge paper copy fees for an electronic record is clearly prohibited, whether or not they are "agency copy" fees or copies provided to the requester.
3 - Pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-30(B), fees may be assessed for "search, retrieval, or redaction of records". Certainly redacting electronic records electronically is more efficient and cost-effective. Fees must be "reasonable" and "the records must be furnished at the lowest possible cost to the person requesting the records". The statute does not permit the assessment of fees to satisfy an internal mandate of filing all records related to FOIA requests on paper.
4 - Pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-50(A)(2), "administrative staff manuals and instructions to staff that affect a member of the public" are inherently public record. I am unclear as to what information would even be subject to redaction in the requested records. If any redaction is required, the charge would be for the staff time to perform the redactions, not for paper copies of the record or for time spent researching what content is exempt.
5 - I will go ahead and request a full waiver of all fees now. The policies and procedures of a law enforcement agency are of paramount public interest and these records will be made available to the public. As previously noted, the three other large law enforcement agencies in the county already publish their policies on their respective web sites at no charge. I am not aware of any redactions any of these agencies have made. Perhaps the Sheriff would be interested in bringing CCSO's level of transparency up to the level of neighboring departments? She stated in a press conference less than a week ago "...we care about policing, transparency, and the safety of this community".
Mount Pleasant Police Department's Policies/Procedures are 740 pages and 20.5MB. A reasonable estimate of the size of CCSO's policies based on the quoted 1683 pages is 46.62MB, but let's just say it's 100MB for simplicity. A 128GB USB drive is $12 on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-Flair-128GB-Flash/dp/B015CH1PJU?th=1). Instead of printing the 1683 pages and producing a paper file for ~$336, you can use this USB drive for $12, use it to file all records related to this request, and still have room on the USB drive for 4.7 million more pages! Imagine how many trees (and FOIA requesters' and taxpayers' money) you can save! Demonstrating my commitment to a practical solution, I offer to cover the cost of the USB drive's storage space for the portion utilized for this request - 9/10ths of one cent (I'll round it up).
I look forward to your response and an amicable resolution. Thanks,
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
We are actually currently working on getting our policies online, less the information that is not public, for security reasons. This would be certain procedures for investigations, emergency situations, etc.
Again, that was an estimate and there were no charges for copies being supplied to you.
Not everything that is provided to me, for requests, is provided in electronic format. Many times, there is someone within a department pulling files, making copies, and putting them on my desk. That may not always be the case, this is why there is an estimate and only 25% is charged up front.
I will speak to our general counsel about this as she is the one that has made it clear to our office that some redactions are required. It has not been made clear to me exactly what they wish to redact and from which policies, so I am uncertain of the amount of time that may be required to redact the roughly 180 policies.
Karli Maratea
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~WRD2789
From: Patrick Wells
Thank you for your diligence. If more info can be provided (when you receive it) about the redactions, it’s possible I can narrow down the request to reduce the staff time necessary.
Thanks again,
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
To update you.
According to General Counsel, all policies have now been rewritten with any information that would need to be redacted removed.
I will let you know when ready.
The charge will ultimately be for a couple of hours of work and $20 per CD. I have to pull each policy individually and am not sure at the moment how many CD’s may be needed.
Karli Maratea
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~WRD0001
From: Patrick Wells
Thank you for the update!
Patrick Wells
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I'm following up on the following South Carolina Public Records Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on Nov. 26, 2023. You had previously indicated that it would be completed on Dec. 11, 2023. I wanted to check on the status of my request, and to see if there was a new estimated completion date. You had assigned it reference number #F2300658.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Patrick Wells
Sorry, that last message was an automated follow-up, disregard the 12/11 reference - I know our last correspondence was on 12/15. However, I would appreciate a status update whenever you get settled back in from the holidays. Thank you,
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
Good morning.
I was informed in a meeting last week that we are close to getting these published online, which would save some money on your end, so I was waiting on word of that. I was just informed that our goal is the end of the week. Your documents are due on 1/10/24, I am hoping this works out.
Karli Maratea
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~WRD0001
From: Patrick Wells
Sounds good, thanks for the update!
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
Hi, Patrick.
If you can hold off for a bit, I am told that they are currently in the process of posting these online.
Karli Maratea
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image001
From: Patrick Wells
Hi Karli,
Yes, that will be fine. Thank you again for the update,
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
Good morning, Patrick.
I have asked to be notified as soon as the policies are up. I will let you know as soon as I’m given the go.
Karli Maratea
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~WRD0001
From: Patrick Wells
Karli,
Do you have an update or estimate for when the policies will be available?
Thanks,
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
Good morning.
I apologize for the delay, I just got an update last Friday.
Our General Counsel says that they should be loaded by the end of this week.
Karli Maratea
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~WRD0000
From: Patrick Wells
Karli,
Please provide a link to the publicly posted policies by the end of this week or proceed with fulfilling this request directly.
Thanks,
Patrick Wells
From: Charleston County Sheriff's Office
Thank you for your patience and I apologize for the delay. It was a work in progress and between Legal and IT, took longer than expected.
https://sheriff.charlestoncounty.org/files/CCSO-Policy-and-Procedures-Manual.pdf
Karli Maratea
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~WRD0000
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