The Federal Bureau of Prisons is permanently closing the notorious “rape club” women's prison in Dublin, California, and will deactivate six facilities in a sweeping restructuring after years of abuse, decay and mismanagement.
The agency informed employees and Congress through a notification on Thursday that it plans to close the federal correctional institution in Dublin that has been the center of controversy for several years. The bureau is also deactivating several minimum-security prison camps in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida.
The agency said staff and inmates at the affected locations will be moved to other facilities.
The document released by the Bureau of Prisons said it is taking “decisive and strategic action” to deal with “significant challenges including severe staff shortages, crumbling infrastructure and limited budgetary resources”. The agency said it is not cutting headcount and is committed to finding positions for each affected employee.
The shutdown is a striking coda to the Biden administration's leadership of the Justice Department's largest agency. After repeatedly promising to improve FCI Dublin and other troubled facilities, Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters moved toward closure and consolidation, citing inadequate staffing and staggering costs to repair aging infrastructure. Have been.
The permanent shutdown of FCI Dublin, just east of San Francisco, comes after seven months A temporary closure was announced after improvement efforts The wake of staff-on-prisoner abuse led to the nickname “Rape Club”. At the time, it appeared that the agency was ready to close the low-security prison, but officials raised the possibility that it could be renovated and reopened for a different purpose, such as housing male inmates. Is.
The agency said the assessment identified substantial repairs needed to reopen FCI Dublin. Low staffing due to the high cost of living in the Bay Area also contributed to the decision to close the facility, the agency said.
“We understand the impact the closure will have on our employees and we are committed to ensuring all other locations are able to fulfill the agency's mission,” the statement said.
The prison has been at the center of a years long investigationSince 2021, at least eight employees, including a former warden, have been accused of sexually abusing inmates.
Five employees have confessed to their crime. Two were convicted at trial, including former warden Ray Garcia. Case Case pending against eighth employee,
At the time of the closure announcement, there were approximately 600 prisoners living in FCI Dublin.
The move comes three years after the agency closed its troubled New York prison in Manhattan after myriad problems emerged there following Jeffrey Epstein's suicide, including lax security, understaffing and shabby, unsafe conditions such as concrete. and damaged cells.
The Bureau of Prisons and the Correctional Employees Union have repeatedly pushed for additional federal prison funding, citing salary increases, staff retention and insufficient funds to address the multibillion-dollar repair backlog. The agency said more than half of federal prison facilities were built before 1991 and many are aging or becoming obsolete.
The agency said it hoped reassigning staff to the remaining facilities would boost retention and cut down on mandatory overtime and enhancements, a practice by which cooks, teachers, nurses and other prison staff are overworked for the safety of inmates. is appointed.
The permanent closure of FCI Dublin represents an extraordinary admission by the Bureau of Prisons that it has failed to fix the culture and environment of the facility in the wake of the AP report, which exposed rampant sexual abuse within its walls. Had done. Hundreds of people imprisoned at FCI Dublin are suing the agency, demanding reforms and monetary compensation for abuses at the facility.
The action to close FCI Dublin and the federal prison system comes amid an AP investigation that has revealed deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons. AP reporting has revealed widespread criminal activity, dozens of escapes, chronic violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages by employees that have hampered response to emergencies, including attacks and suicides.
In July, President Joe Biden signed a law strengthening the agency's oversight after an AP report exposed several of its flaws.