OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — A federal master assigned to oversee reforms at a shuttered San Francisco Bay Area women’s prison this summer reported catastrophic issues leaving incarcerated women without proper care or recourse for their protection.
Special master Wendy Still’s report to an Oakland federal judge, which was unsealed Friday, describes a host of policy failures at the federal Bureau of Prisons facility FCI Dublin. She cited issues such as inadequate medical care, improper investigations into sex abuse reports, unnecessary disciplinary measures and lack of required programming for 605 incarcerated women.
"The cascade of failures in operational practice has led to staff and [adults in custody] becoming discouraged and to lose confidence in the ability of the BOP to protect/support them," Still wrote in the 101-page report.
Still recommended the bureau conduct better training, fix systemic tracking issues, hire staff to fill vacancies and conduct exit interviews to explore why former staff left their positions.
Still spent months documenting procedures at the prison. She was assigned after U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers visited the facility and blasted the bureau over its treatment of incarcerated witnesses amid a consolidated class action accusing the government of maintaining and enabling a system of sexual and physical abuse and retaliation against incarcerated people. The case looks to be headed to a 2025 trial.
Randilee Giamusso, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons, said the federal agency will not comment on pending litigation but it welcomes the report and will work with Still on her findings and recommendations.
Still’s report, filed June 5, went public only after Judge Rogers, an Obama appointee, granted a motion to unseal filed the American Civil Liberties Union and the nonprofit Public Justice. It’s the first of its kind to document bureau practices within a shuttered facility, following Rogers' unprecedented move appointing Still.
The report focused on what happened after the facility’s sudden closure in April, 10 days after Still and an all-woman team began to oversee reforms. Still and her team of experts methodically documented how women at the prison lived without prompt medical and mental health treatment and had no safe path to file sex abuse complaints. Seven of the facility's correctional officers, including the warden, were sentenced to prison for sex crimes and an eighth will face a trial on similar charges.
The report helps corroborate the accounts of more than 100 women, some of whom testified in court last winter.
Still reported that since FCI Dublin is only 51% staffed — it has the second-highest staff vacancy rate in the Prison Bureau's western region — cooks, teachers and nurses were often tasked with correctional officer duties. Worse, Still said, incarcerated women often had to observe others who had been placed on suicide watch.
Many of the prison’s vacancies were due to staff being placed on leave due to allegations of sexual abuse on the job or other inappropriate behavior.
Still also observed that many women at the prison suffered from substance abuse and were denied medical treatment or had their medication reduced without explanation.
And there was no computer tracking system at FCI Dublin being used to record women’s reports of abuse, nor an established time frame within which officials must complete an investigation. The prison’s chief psychologist said she kept no Prison Rape Elimination Act files on any women, Still said, and federal agents used "boilerplate" responses after women filed formal complaints.
More than 600 women removed from FCI Dublin have also filed reports in court of similar problems at prisons across the country, Still added. "It is critical to note that some of the deficiencies and issues exposed within this report are likely an indication of systemwide issues with the BOP," Still wrote, "rather than simply within FCI Dublin."
Attorneys for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The parties return to court for a settlement conference Aug. 20. The class action is still set for a trial in June 2025.
FCI Dublin is located in Dublin, California. Until its shuttering in April, it was a low-security women’s facility with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp.
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