Bay Area federal women’s prison to close after being plagued by sex abuse

By Ryan Curry

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    DUBLIN, California (KGO) — The Federal Bureau of Prisons announced Monday the Correctional Institute in Dublin will close. That location has been the center of a several year sexual abuse investigation where eight former staff members have been charged with abusing inmates.

“There is an officer over there – he is nasty with all the girls, he like to see us naked in the showers,” said a former inmate who asked not to be identified. “Some of the girls have addictions, and the officers, they are the ones who bring in contraband and give in exchange for sexual favors.”

Five of the former staff members have pleaded guilty and two more were convicted at trial. Another case is still pending trial.

The Bureau of Prisons sent a statement:

“The Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) has taken unprecedented steps and provided a tremendous amount of resources to address culture, recruitment and retention, aging infrastructure – and most critical – employee misconduct. 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.”

Congressman Mark DeSaulnier says this abrupt closure is concerning

“The fact that we got to this point is deeply troubling,” he said in a statement. “There are still a lot of unanswered questions about this closure we are waiting for answers to, but the top priorities must be the protection of the inmates and their constitutional rights.”

In an interview, he says congress needs to step in.

“I ask the committees of jurisdiction which would be the House Judiciary Committee and oversight to start investigating of the whole system,” he said. “If necessary, we need to close more of these facilities and appropriately see if there is a way to run a system that is fair, holds people accountable, and doesn’t infringe on their constitutional rights.”

The closest federal prison to Dublin is nearly 400 miles away in Victorville. The BOP did not say where they are currently transferring the inmates because of safety reasons. Former inmates say transferring can be brutal.

“It is extremely painful,” said another inmate who also asked to not be identified. “They put those women in shackles on their wrists, on their ankles, put them in buses for days and days to transfer them across the country sometimes months.”

The California Coalition for Women Prisoners says this is a shady move by the BOP. A few weeks ago, a judge appointed a special master to oversee operations in Dublin. Now the prison is closed, and the inmates will go to other locations that wont have special masters overseeing them.

“This kind of abrupt closure really feels like a total evasion of accountability to survivors, incarcerated people and advocates,” said Emily Shapiro, with the Coalition. “The BOP shutting down Dublin and sending people to other federal prisons isn’t solving anything. In many ways it is punishing survivors further.”

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