The US Bureau of Prisons (BoP) announced on Thursday it was permanently closing a California women’s prison plagued by staff sexual misconduct scandals, and suspending operations at six other federal institutions.
The shutdowns come as the federal agency is facing intensifying scrutiny surrounding guards’ rampant sexual abuse of incarcerated residents, a crisis of suicides and preventable deaths across its prisons and reports of severe medical neglect.
The BoP is permanently shuttering the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin, a low-security facility east of Oakland, which was known internally as the “rape club” due to the widespread, documented staff assaults of women in custody. Seven former officers have been criminally convicted for a range of sexual offenses, including the former warden, and more than 20 were placed on leave and are under investigation. FCI Dublin was temporarily closed in April after a US judge appointed a special master to oversee the embattled facility, and hundreds of incarcerated residents were transferred to institutions across the US.
The BoP said Thursday that it had also “deactivated” prisons and camps in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida, with incarcerated residents transferred elsewhere. The bureau cited “critical staffing shortage, crumbling infrastructure, and limited budgetary resources”, and said employees would also be transferred, asserting that the bureau was “not downsizing” and that it was “committed to finding positions for every employee who wants to remain with the agency”.
The BoP also said it had been “unable to maintain staffing levels” at Dublin “due to the high cost of living and competition from other area law enforcement agencies”. The announcement did not address the sexual abuse scandals.
“I’m thrilled they’re closing Dublin prison … There was not a minute where you felt safe in that institution,” said Kendra Drysdale, an advocate with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, who was imprisoned at Dublin until her release in April. She has spoken out about the abuse and retaliation she and others endured.
“But I’m very concerned for what these closures mean for everyone,” she continued. “They’re just putting Band-Aids on everything. The culture is ingrained in the BoP, and we don’t see the willingness to make the changes that need to happen. BoP as an institution has proven it cannot keep people safe.”
Drysdale and advocates with the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition are calling on the Biden administration to grant clemency to survivors of staff sexual abuse who remain imprisoned within the BoP, especially after Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his own son.
“The transfers were horrific. Nothing is getting better where they are,” Drysdale said of the survivors who are still housed in the BoP system, some sent far away from their hometowns and families. “They’re not able to get any kind of trauma-informed care. They’re really struggling. I’m seeing huge levels of depression. It makes me feel guilty for being able to be out here and get the help I need.”
Susan Beaty, senior attorney with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, and co-counsel in a pending class-action lawsuit against the BoP over the abuse in Dublin, said there were dozens of survivors of staff sexual misconduct who remain incarcerated, including three named plaintiffs in the litigation. “Closing Dublin is acknowledging that they don’t have the resources or ability to keep people in their custody safe,” they said. “One very easy solution to that problem is to release people.”
The Dublin coalition has been advocating for clemency grants on behalf of more than 20 survivors with pending applications. Beaty said the US government could also release people through reform measures such as the Second Chance Act and could transfer incarcerated survivors to home confinement and community-based programs.
Some of the survivors of staff abuse are also immigrants at risk of deportation due to their criminal records, particularly as Donald Trump assumes office with plans to launch mass removal efforts.
“We all just feel so passionately that if Biden can pardon his son, he can definitely grant clemency to survivors of this heinous abuse by federal government employees,” said Drysdale. “To not do that is an absolute disgrace and embarrassment.”
Records have repeatedly suggested that staff sexual abuse is a systemic problem beyond Dublin. The US Senate reported in 2022 that staff had sexually abused women in custody in at least two-thirds of its facilities over the last decade, with some victims repeatedly targeted for months or years.
A US justice department office of the inspector general report released earlier this year further found that from 2014 to 2021, 187 people died by suicide inside BoP institutions, and that psychology services staff reported that these types of deaths were preventable with proper protocols and treatment. The BoP repeatedly failed to effectively discipline staff for misconduct that contributed to preventable deaths, the inspector general said. Reporting has also suggested that incarcerated people in BoP prisons die from treatable conditions due to delayed diagnoses and inadequate care.
The BoP declined to answer questions about the calls for releases, and the federal Office of the Pardon Attorney did not immediately respond to inquiries about survivors’ clemency applications.
