How Charleston County Sheriff's Office Runs RMS, JMS, Civil, and MDC on a Single EIS Platform
- Jan 15, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 17
When one of South Carolina's largest sheriff's offices puts your entire product suite into daily operations, you find out pretty fast whether your software actually works.
Charleston County Sheriff's Office isn't a small agency kicking the tires on a single module. They've been running EIS's Records Management System (RMS), Jail Management System (JMS), Civil Process Management, and Mobile Digital Computing (MDC) since 2018, across a jurisdiction that covers 916 square miles, serves over 365,000 residents, and holds triple accreditation from CALEA, the American Corrections Association, and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.
That's not a pilot program. That's a full commitment.
Amanda Basnight, an IT System Specialist with Charleston County, has worked with EIS since the go-live. And the features her team values most aren't the ones that look flashy in a demo room. They're the ones that save time on real shifts.
Pre-Book: Starting the Booking Process Before You Walk Through the Door
If you've ever watched an officer sit in a booking area for two hours entering data that could have been captured in the field, you already understand why pre-book matters.
Pre-book is one of the Charleston County Sheriff's Office's favorite EIS features. Officers can start the booking process in their patrol cars immediately after detaining a suspect. The data travels with the arrest, so by the time the officer arrives at the facility, the intake process is already underway.
But here's the part that matters for larger agencies: surrounding agencies that use Charleston County's jail facilities can use the pre-book feature too. In a county with multiple jurisdictions and a consolidated jail, that's not a nice-to-have. That's a force multiplier for the entire detention operation.
Think about what that eliminates:
Wait time at booking. Officers aren't standing around re-entering information they already documented in the field.
Data entry bottlenecks. When multiple agencies are bringing detainees to your facility, pre-book prevents the intake desk from becoming a traffic jam at shift change.
Transcription errors. Data entered once in the field doesn't get re-typed (and mistyped) by a second person at the jail.
As Basnight puts it, pre-book helps with time management and makes the process easier. Straightforward. No sales pitch needed.
Integrated Data: Enter It Once, See It Everywhere
Here's where the EIS platform earns its keep on a daily basis.
The EIS system is intertwined, that's the word Basnight uses, and it's the right one. There's no need to worry about duplicating data entries because the software combines everything together. An officer takes a report in RMS. A name gets entered. That same name, that same data, flows through to JMS when there's a booking, to Civil when there's a process to serve, and back again without anyone re-keying it.
Basnight describes it as using RMS to take a "sneak peek" into the JMS system. That's not just a convenience, it's an operational advantage. When a deputy in the field can see that the person they're dealing with has an active booking record or outstanding civil process, they're making better-informed decisions without calling dispatch or waiting on a records clerk to look it up.
All EIS components are integrated into common core products, providing a single point of data entry. Information passes between system modules, and existing data is brought forward, eliminating the need to re-key information.
For an agency the size of Charleston County (with patrol, investigations, detention, civil process, and school resource officers all operating under one roof), that integration isn't optional. Siloed data in one module means blind spots in another.
Why This Matters for Agencies Evaluating Vendors
If you're a sheriff, chief, or IT director shopping for records management software, Charleston County's experience highlights three things worth paying attention to:
1. Multi-Module Integration Is Either Real or It Isn't
A lot of vendors will tell you their RMS "talks to" their JMS. What they sometimes mean is there's an export function that generates a file someone has to import manually. Or an API that works in theory but breaks every time one system updates.
EIS's integration isn't a bolt-on. RMS, JMS, Civil Process, and MDC share a common database. That's why Basnight can describe "peeking" from one system into another, because there's no wall between them. It's one platform.
2. Pre-Book Scales Beyond Your Own Agency
If your jail houses inmates from neighboring jurisdictions (and if you're a county sheriff's office, it almost certainly does), your booking workflow needs to accommodate external agencies. EIS's pre-book feature works for those surrounding agencies, too, which means your intake desk isn't the bottleneck for someone else's arrest.
3. Civil Process Belongs on the Same Platform
Civil process management often gets treated as a separate problem; different vendor, different system, different login. In Charleston County, Civil and its MDC component run on the same EIS platform as RMS and JMS. Deputies serving civil process have the same data access, the same mobile tools, and the same support structure as every other division.
That matters for accountability, reporting, and, frankly, not having to train your people on four different systems.
The Agency Behind the Testimonial
It's worth understanding the scale of operation we're talking about. Charleston County Sheriff's Office serves 365,209 residents across 916 square miles; the seventh largest county geographically in South Carolina, and its third-most populous. The agency is internationally accredited by CALEA, the American Corrections Association, and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.
The Sheriff's Office engages in civil process, detention, and warrants on a countywide basis, with patrol, investigations, judicial enforcement, and school resource officers all operating under the same organizational structure.
They chose EIS. And they've been running the full suite since 2018. Not because the demo looked good, but because the system works on a Tuesday night when booking is backed up, and three agencies are bringing in detainees at the same time.
What EIS Brings to an Agency Like This
For decision-makers doing their homework, here's the practical breakdown:
RMS — Records management system with complete data collection, incident reporting, case management, and NIBRS compliance. Single point of data entry across all modules.
JMS — Enterprise jail management system that manages all aspects of jail operations: booking, inmate tracking, medical, personal property, inmate funds, commissary, classification, movement logs, and headcount. Supports multiple interfaces to external systems.
Civil Process Management — Integrated civil process tracking on the same platform, with MDC access for deputies in the field.
MDC / PocketJMS — Mobile tools that extend the platform to patrol cars and facility floors. Pre-book from the field. Access inmate data on the move. Keep movement logs clean without being chained to a desktop.
Integrations — AFIS/Livescan, NCIC/NLETS, VINE victim notification, court systems, commissary, medical, inmate telephone, and video visitation.
24/7/365 In-House Support — Every call goes to a real person on the EIS support team. Not an answering service. Not a ticket queue. A person with public safety experience who can help you fix the problem right now.
Cooperative Purchasing — EIS holds a Sourcewell contract for agencies that want to fulfill the extended RFP cycle without going through it themselves.
EIS has been serving public safety agencies since 1989.
Hear It Directly from Charleston County Sheriff's Office
Amanda Basnight's full testimonial is available on video. Watch it below to hear directly from Charleston County about how EIS's RMS, JMS, Civil Process, and MDC work in daily operations.
If your agency is evaluating records management software, jail management systems, or a full public safety platform, contact EIS or call (208) 580-0400. We'll show you what integrated actually looks like. You can also see how Dunnellon PD navigated a transition with EIS.
