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The fallout from widely reported sex crimes at the now-former federal women’s prison in Dublin is persisting despite the facility’s closure earlier this year — keeping the Tri-Valley community in regional and national headlines — as new details about conditions at the prison continue to come to light amid ongoing legislative and legal ramifications.
The Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin closed in April following a series of high-profile reports on sex crimes endured by incarcerated women in the facility that was found to be internally referred to as a “rape club” by staff in reporting from news media. At least eight former employees have been targeted for criminal prosecution in the scandal.
“Thank God for the Associated Press – and this is a big problem we have culturally is the demise of journalism, and Americans don’t realize how much we depend on professional journalists to uncover things like this. It never should have come to this, however,” U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) told DanvilleSanRamon in a recent interview.
The AP’s reporting on the low-security women’s prison brought Dublin into national headlines as scrutiny of the facility and criminal charges against employees – and the beginnings of additional federal oversight – ensued after details were made public in early 2022.
The initial reports of abuse at the prison emerged months after the redistricting process in late 2021. One notable change for the Tri-Valley congressional districts was that the site of the prison at 5701 8th St. now falls into DeSaulnier’s boundaries after having previously been situated in the district of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Livermore).
DeSaulnier said that alarm bells had been sounded over conditions at the prison, and that other lawmakers including his predecessor had sought to look into complaints previously but were met with the obstacles of a facility and system that he said lacks overall transparency.
“The way they’ve been treating me makes me think this is endemic,” DeSaulnier said.
While DeSaulnier has seen some success in his efforts to hold accountable the employees and overall system that enabled the abuse faced by numerous women in the facility with the passage of the Federal Prison Oversight Act – a bill he co-sponsored – over the summer, he said that as new details continue to emerge, the overall picture of life at the facility grows even more grim.
“It’s unbelievably maddening and depressing,” DeSaulnier said. “FCI Dublin was a moral cesspool, and we’ve got eight people including the warden and chaplain who have been convicted of sexual assault.”
Many of those additional details are revealed in a report prepared by a six-member team that was led by Special Master Wendy Still – the first-ever special master appointed for the Federal Bureau of Prisons – which was unsealed this summer following a judge’s order in a class action lawsuit filed by women who had been incarcerated at FCI Dublin.
“The Special Master’s report, the things I’ve been told by the employees there – it’s both infuriating, but also depressing,” DeSaulnier said. “How could people in positions of responsibility be so awful? And they’ve got to be held accountable.”
While sexual assault and abuse in particular, and related allegations of harassment and retaliation, have been the focus of much of the ongoing revelations and investigations into the now-shuttered prison, Still’s report paints an overall picture of abuse and neglect amplified by understaffing and a lack of services ranging from education and employment rehabilitation programs to basic physical and mental health care.
“Patients at FCI-Dublin were not provided timely access to care,” Still wrote in the findings of the report. “This includes lack of timely access to all components of health care (e.g., medical, mental, dental, vision, diagnostic, and specialty services).”
Still’s report found that there were numerous cases in which women in the facility were not provided treatment for serious health conditions, resulting in “preventable pain and suffering, and demonstrable harm to patients”.
This stemmed, Still said, from a lack of adequate assessment of patients amplified by a lack of oversight and evaluation of medical staff.
“This brings into question the existing policy and procedure used for credentialing and privileging of medical providers, and the ongoing performance evaluation, peer review process, and competency auditing of nursing personnel,” Still wrote.
The report additionally found “significant problems with the management of chronic disease patients related to the timeliness and/or quality of care” they received. This was particularly true, according to Still’s findings, of access to medication for a range of chronic conditions.
One example Still pointed to in the report was “Patient 2” – who was 81 years old when she came to the facility in 2022, where employees reportedly refused to allow her to keep the orthotics she wore for mobility issues, including severe arthritis.
“Due to the denial of her special shoes and orthotics, she reported trouble walking and had fallen multiples times,” Still wrote. “The patient had her first fall a few months after arriving at the facility. She sustained a lower leg injury to her right calf and stated the wound was open, red and oozing pus.”
“She stated it took two to three weeks to be seen by medical,” Still continued. “The patient stated her initial treatment was ointment and ace wrap. The wound did not heal, and worsened over time.”
It was close to two months after the fall that “Patient 2” ultimately first got proper care from the facility’s medical provider. She told Still that the wound did not fully heal for more than eight months.
The same patient also reported that she was continuing to suffer side effects from a prolonged COVID-19 infection sustained while incarcerated in the facility.
“The patient states she has a hard time breathing and can only walk a few feet without becoming short of breath,” Still wrote.
The woman had told Still that employees at the prison had threatened to send her to a different facility in Texas if she complained about the incident, causing her to stop “requesting assistance or help from medical and just depended on the other inmates to help her” for fear of being transferred to an area further away from her family, according to Still’s report.
That fear, however, ultimately came true when the facility was closed earlier this year in what Still called an “unnecessarily rushed” process.
“Methodical, planned, thoughtful practices could not be carried out, leading to mass chaos,” Still wrote. “Communication from leadership changed daily leading to even more confusion.”
Compounding the frantic and stressful nature of the closure, according to Still’s findings, was the use of staff from other facilities not trained in working with the populations at FCI Dublin in order to aid with the move.
“Many of the staff who were brought in from men’s facilities to assist in packing property had never worked with women or transgender (adults in custody), and had no idea how to communicate or deescalate the emotional responses the AICs had during the chaotic closure process associated with their property,” Still wrote.
DeSaulnier said that he was also concerned about the closure process and continues to monitor the situation closely despite the closure of the prison that had operated in his congressional district.
“We’ve got to hold them accountable, because I don’t think they have a lot of respect for congress or the public,” DeSaulnier said. “They’re going to by the time we get through though.”
Nonetheless, DeSaulnier noted that amid stonewalling from staff and officials within the prison, full oversight and accountability would continue to take a lot more work to even gauge the scale and scope of overall problems with FCI Dublin and the overall prison system.
“My own feeling – just the smell of this is there are more people who should be prosecuted, and they’re blowing me off; they’re fighting the DOJ, they’re blowing off the press, because they’re worried about going to jail themselves,” DeSaulnier said.
The class action case that Still’s report was ordered and unsealed for is set to go to trial next year. The case is one of dozens that have been filed by women formerly incarcerated at FCI Dublin in the past three years.
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