SLED agent, educator named SC State police chief
Dr. Richard Johnson will assume his new duties on Monday, May 6.
“Dr. Johnson brings 35 years of law enforcement and teaching experience to our campus,” Conyers said. “I have full confidence that he will help make SC State a national leader in campus safety and security measures.
“Based on his track record at SLED and at the State Department of Corrections, I know his expertise is precisely what SC State needs in the Campus Police Department’s leadership,” said Conyers, who has a background in military policing. “Dr. Johnson’s experience as the SLED community relations agent for the Low Country Region will lend itself to our community policing philosophy at SC State.”
When Johnson assumes the role on Monday, May 6, he will be returning to the campus he helped protect early in his career. From 1990-2000, Johnson was a member of the Campus Police force.
Before joining SLED in 2005, Johnson spent five years as a criminal investigator for the South Carolina Department of Corrections, where he started his career in 1989 as a corrections officer. He went on later to teach courses in criminology at SC State, as well as neighboring Claflin University and Virginia Union University, Richmond.
An Orangeburg resident, Dr. Johnson earned his Ph.D. in public safety from Capella University, in Minneapolis, MN, in 2015; his Master of Arts in criminal justice from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, in 1998; his Bachelor of Science in criminal justice from Voorhees University, in Denmark, SC, in 1994; and an Associate Arts degree in criminal justice from Denmark Technical College in Denmark, SC, in 1990.