OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — The federal Bureau of Prisons will close a women’s prison in the San Francisco Bay Area amid a class action and investigations into the abuse and neglect of inmates by prison staff.
The bureau said Monday it plans to close FCI Dublin, known as the “rape club,” despite attempts to reform the troubled facility amid claims of “rampant” staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.
Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters said in a statement that the agency took "unprecedented steps" to address many problems at the facility including employee misconduct and aging infrastructure.
“Despite these steps and resources, we have determined that FCI Dublin is not meeting expected standards and that the best course of action is to close the facility,” Peters said. “This decision is being made after ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of those unprecedented steps and additional resources.”
FCI Dublin, about 20 miles east of Oakland, is one of six women-only federal prisons and has 605 inmates — 504 inmates in its main prison and another 101 at an adjacent minimum-security camp.
The women currently at the prison will be transferred to other facilities and no employees will lose their jobs, Peters said.
"As we determine placement, each woman will be assessed and their programming needs will be taken into account," she said. "We will endeavor to keep them as close to their release locations as possible and ensure that they have access to counsel at their receiving institution. The closure of the institution may be temporary but certainly will result in a mission change."
FCI Dublin has for decades been at the center of sexual assault scandals. Advocates have called for inmates to be freed from the facility, which they say is not only plagued by sexual abuse, but also hazardous mold, asbestos and inadequate health care.
For months, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has heard testimony from incarcerated women who brought a class action this past August challenging the state’s handling of multiple individual lawsuits claiming decades of sexual abuse at the prison. Eight individuals and the grassroots organization California Coalition for Women Prisoners say the feds enabled a pattern of “rampant” sexual abuse of incarcerated people and that a culture of abuse is “deeply entrenched” due to inadequate policies to detect and prevent mistreatment.
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how the closure affects their clients. They have told Judge Rogers that they hope to be ready for a trial before the end of the year.
Rogers on Monday ordered the bureau to update records of all inmates being transferred from the facility to ensure they're sent to the correct location. The feds must give the updated records to the facility's special master — who she appointed this spring to oversee operations following the FBI’s search of the prison.
The Barack Obama appointee recently made an unannounced visit to the facility to observe conditions inside. Rogers said in February that she was “shocked” to learn that people were being placed in a special prison unit during litigation, and found the facility has many unfilled posts due to how many prison employees had been placed on leave as a result of the class action. She ordered the facility to immediately provide heat and blankets and investigate reports of black mold, a gas leak and asbestos.
The Bureau of Prisons also shook up leadership this spring after a warden sent to rehabilitate the facility was accused of retaliating against a whistleblower inmate.
Representative Judy Chu, a Democrat from Pasadena, said in a statement Monday that she is working in Congress with Representative Jay Obernolte to pass H.R. 6711, the Prison Staffing Reform Act, to direct the Bureau of Prisons to review understaffing issues across the agency.
“Every American, in every interaction they have with the criminal justice system, must be guaranteed access to basic human rights and dignity, including freedom from abuse," Chu said.
"Public reports and FBI reviews vividly demonstrate this has long not been the case at FCI Dublin, which is why I have advocated for increased oversight and reforms at the facility. As FCI Dubin has shown, the inability to maintain proper staff ratios means serial abusers are kept on prison payrolls, subjecting incarcerated women in particular to sexual violence and harassment. Congress must ensure the Bureau of Prisons fully protects everyone in their custody and implements an accountability structure when facilities violate the constitutional rights of incarcerated people, up to and including permanently closing facilities.”
The facility’s closure comes despite officials’ repeated assertions that reforms were underway to prevent abuse of incarcerated people. In 1998 the bureau settled claims that FCI Dublin officers placed incarcerated women in a men’s solitary confinement unit and allowed them to be raped — and agreed to implement numerous reforms.
In 2019, the Congressional House Subcommittee on National Security determined widespread misconduct in the federal prison system had been tolerated and routinely covered up or ignored. An Associated Press investigation in 2021 found a culture of abuse and cover-ups that had persisted for years at the prison, which led to increased scrutiny from Congress and pledges from the Bureau of Prisons that it would fix problems and change the culture at the prison.
At least eight FCI Dublin employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates with five having pleaded guilty. Warden Ray J. Garcia, 55, was sentenced to serve six years in prison in March, and other officers and staff either await sentencing or face similar lawsuits claiming abuse.
All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal as correctional employees hold substantial power over incarcerated people.
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