Inside one of the only federal women’s prisons in the U.S., inmates say they have been subjected to rampant sexual abuse by correctional officers.
DUBLIN, Calif. — Inside one of the only federal women’s prisons in the United States, inmates say they have been subjected to rampant sexual abuse by correctional officers and even the warden, and were often threatened or punished when they tried to speak up. Prisoners and workers at the federal correctional institution in Dublin, even have a name for it: « The rape club. »An Associated Press investigation has found a permissive and toxic culture at the Bay Area lockup, enabling years of sexual misconduct by predatory employees and cover-ups that have largely kept the abuse out of the public eye. The AP obtained internal federal Bureau of Prisons documents, statements and recordings from inmates, interviewed current and former prison employees and inmates and reviewed thousands of pages of court records from criminal and civil cases involving Dublin prison staff. Together, they detail how inmates’ allegations against members of the mostly male staff were ignored or set aside, how prisoners could be sent to solitary confinement for reporting abuse and how officials in charge of preventing and investigating sexual misconduct were themselves accused of abusing inmates or neglecting their concerns. In one instance, a female inmate said a man, who was her prison work supervisor, taunted her by remarking « let the games begin » when he assigned her to work with a maintenance foreman she accused of rape. Another worker claimed he wanted to get inmates pregnant. The warden – the man in charge at Dublin – kept nude photos on his government-issued cellphone of a woman he is accused of assaulting. One inmate said she was « overwhelmed with fear, anxiety, and anger, and cried uncontrollably » after enduring abuse and retaliation at Dublin. Another said she contemplated suicide when her cries for help went unheeded and now suffers from severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. Correctional employees enjoy substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent. The allegations at Dublin, which so far have resulted in four arrests, are endemic of a larger problem within the beleaguered Bureau of Prisons. In 2020, the same year some of the women at Dublin complained, there were 422 complaints of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse across the system of 122 prisons and 153,000 inmates. The agency said it substantiated only four of those complaints and that 290 are still being investigated. It would not say whether the allegations were concentrated in women’s prisons or spread throughout the system. A hotbed of corruption and misconduct, the federal prison system has been plagued by myriad crises in recent years, including widespread criminal activity among employees, critically low staffing levels that have hampered responses to emergencies, the rapid spread of COVID-19, a failed response to the pandemic and dozens of escapes. Last month, the embattled director, Michael Carvajal, announced he was resigning. On Monday, two inmates were killed in a gang clash at a federal penitentiary in Texas, prompting a nationwide lockdown. The AP contacted lawyers for every Dublin prison employee charged with sexual abuse or named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging abuse, and tried reaching the men directly through available phone numbers and email addresses. None responded to interview requests. A government lawyer representing one of the men being sued declined comment. Thahesha Jusino, taking over as Dublin’s warden at the end of the month, promised to « work tirelessly to reaffirm the Bureau of Prisons’ zero tolerance for sexual abuse and sexual harassment. »She said the agency is fully cooperating with the Justice Department’s inspector general on active investigations and noted that a « vast majority » of these cases were referred for investigation by the Bureau of Prisons itself. »I am committed to ensuring the safety of our inmates, staff, and the public, » Jusino said in a statement to the AP. « A culture of misconduct, or actions not representative of the BOP’s Core Values will not be tolerated. »The Justice Department said in a statement that « Zero tolerance means exactly that.
