Task force investigates abuse-clouded facility
For months, inmates and staff at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin say their calls for help were ignored.
And in this aging East Bay prison of deep despair — a place where sexual abuse has been rampant and authorities acted with utter indifference — the cries for help had been many and varied.
An Associated Press investigation revealed a culture of abuse and cover-ups that persisted for years at the all-women prison, called the “rape club” by many who know it. Because of AP reporting, the head of the federal Bureau of Prisons had submitted his resignation in January.
Yet no one had been named to replace him, so he was still on the job. Now Michael Carvajal was responding to the problems in Dublin — but only after angry U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-San Mateo) had called him to complain.
So early March found the lame-duck administrator and a task force of senior agency officials arriving at the prison after flying in to meet inmates and staff in person.
This story is based on interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the visiting task force’s work, the prison’s operations and the abuse crisis.
In one sign of progress, the agency replaced both of the prison’s associate wardens.
FCI Dublin is one of just six women-only facilities in the U.S. federal prison system. As of April 28, Dublin had about 785 inmates, many serving sentences for drug crimes.
Since last June, five employees, including former warden Ray J. Garcia, have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. Two have pleaded guilty, and the investigation continues: On March 20, a food service foreman was arrested for allegedly touching an inmate’s breasts, buttocks and genitals in October 2020.
Since March, nine other workers have been placed on administrative leave. New inmate sexual abuse and staff employment discrimination complaints were filed during the task force’s visit. At least six internal affairs investigators have been on site investigating claims.
An ongoing AP investigation has uncovered deep flaws within the Bureau of Prisons, including severe staffing shortages, inmate escapes
and the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the findings:
⏩ More than 100 Bureau of Prisons workers arrested, convicted or sentenced for crimes since the start of 2019, but the agency has turned a blind eye to employees accused of misconduct.
⏩ Nearly one-third of federal correctional officer positions are vacant, forcing prisons to use cooks, teachers, nurses and other workers to guard inmates, hampering the response to emergencies, including as inmate suicides.
⏩ 29 prisoners escaped from federal prisons in an 18-month span, with nearly half still at large.
⏩ An unprecedented string of federal executions likely acted as COVID-19 superspreader events, just as health experts warned could happen when the Trump administration insisted on resuming executions during the pandemic.