The federal prison for women in Alameda County, which has an ugly history of sexual abuse of female inmates by staff, needs oversight from an outside monitor, a federal judge has ruled.
In a decision issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ordered the appointment of a special master to carry out corrections and other judicial orders at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, where eight different employees, including a prison guard, have been indicted on charges of involvement in violence. Federal sexual assault charges. Six were sentenced.
The judge described the prison as a “disorderly mess.”
“The situation can no longer be tolerated. The facility is in dire need of immediate change,” Gonzalez-Rogers said in her order.
Because of the Bureau of Prisons' repeated failure to bring about change at the facility, where an inmate's sexual assault was reported in November, Gonzalez-Rogers decided a special master was necessary.
The ruling comes in a class action lawsuit brought by eight women who were imprisoned at FCI Dublin. The women say that despite arrests and charges against several employees, abuse continues.
The low-security prison and its adjacent satellite camp have been plagued by allegations of sexual assault to the point that the prison has become known as the “Rape Club.”
The judge's order came just three days after a third guard at the prison was fired since warden Ray Garcia was convicted of sexually assaulting multiple inmates.
The ouster of the recently appointed warden, Art Dolgoff, coincided with an FBI raid on the facility and the removal of three other top managers. Dolgov and his employees are accused of retaliating against a woman who testified in the class action lawsuit.
The judge wrote in her decision that the main dispute in the current lawsuit is whether women imprisoned at FCI Dublin remain at risk of sexual assault. While many said during the judge's nine-hour visit to the facility that they did not fear sexual assault, the judge decided there was still a risk.
“About 20 officers have been accused of misconduct, investigations are ongoing, and they remain on administrative leave. Overall, the record undermines the government’s argument that the court should be confident that the risk of sexual misconduct has been eliminated,” the judge wrote.
The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on the pending case.
