OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — Abuse and misconduct has grown so “rampant” at a San Francisco Bay Area federal women’s prison that new officials struggle to implement reforms, according to witnesses testifying in a class action brought by incarcerated people demanding that the government stop the abuse.
The organization California Coalition for Women Prisoners sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons in August 2023, claiming it enabled a pattern of “rampant” sexual abuse of incarcerated people at the Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, east of San Francisco.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons manages the low-security facility, which houses about 712 including women and transgender and non-binary people.
The plaintiffs say they endured abuse and exploitation by facility staff, including sexual assault, coercion, voyeurism, drugging and abuse during medical exams. Some reported being forced to strip for or perform sexual acts for prison staff. Others say they were harassed or raped.
Despite being aware of the violence and harassment for decades, the plaintiffs say, the prison bureau has failed to take action.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Wednesday began conducting a three-day evidentiary hearing, starting with witnesses for the federal government.
FCI Dublin deputy corrections captain Erica Quezada said before she took the job in 2022, the prison’s hierarchy of authority was restructured, and many department heads were moved. “There was a lot of misconduct rampant within the institution,” Quezada said.
However, she said she still wanted to work at the prison to “help make some positive changes.”
She remarked on how many staffers had not been trained well. Many were hired during the pandemic. Prison staff were angry at first with so much change taking place, and nearly all of the officers hired when she was eventually retired or went to other institutions, she testified.
“I think there was just an overall lack of accountability with staff, with adherence to policy,” Quezada said. “We weren’t well-received."
The corrections deputy said she trained about 15 female correction officers, accounting for some 21% of the roughly 70 total officers, on preventing unnecessary searches. She said she never learned of an officer performing an unwarranted search, but admitted she wouldn't know if one happened if it wasn't recorded.
Judge Rogers probed policies at the prison and Quezada’s ability to change them, including asking why 36 people had been placed in a special housing unit for protection or discipline. Quezada admitted that, before she took the job, multiple people were placed in the unit after reporting they had been assaulted.
“You say it’s not punitive, but the inmates don’t agree with that,” Rogers said. “If these things were already happening, and you have the same process, how is it any different?”
“I guess we’ve improved as far as what we’ve required,” Quezada said, citing regular meetings and new systems for identifying issues at the prison.
Quezada said she has seen behavior at other facilities indicating staff are “too comfortable” with incarcerated people, but she thinks FCI Dublin is not a “sexualized environment.” However, she said she has passed on reports of sexual harassment to her superiors.
She took a tissue to wipe away tears, saying she wants to ensure there is change in the agency. Of incarcerated women, she said, “They really just want to be heard, they want somebody to listen.”
The hearing will continue through Friday.
FCI Dublin has for decades been identified as the site of sexual assaults. At least four employees were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, sexually abusing incarcerated women.
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, and that problems had plagued the disciplinary process for years. That same year, FCI Dublin’s warden Ray J. Garcia became one of at least eight workers charged between 2019 and 2021 with abusing incarcerated people. He is serving a six-year sentence.
The plaintiffs claim that prison staff protected each other by failing to investigate abuse claims or by retaliating against incarcerated people reporting abuse, and maintaining inadequate policies to detect and prevent mistreating incarcerated people.
The detainees are demanding a jury trial, claiming violations of the Eighth Amendment and the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act which exists to prevent sexual abuse at prison facilities. They also want the bureau ordered to implement reforms to adequately address and prevent further abuse.
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