FCI Dublin To Close: Reports

DUBLIN, CA — The Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, a women’s prison found to be rampant with sexual abuse, will close, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced Monday.

Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters said in a statement that despite “unprecedented steps” and a “tremendous amount of resources to address culture, recruitment and retention, aging infrastructure - and most critical - employee misconduct…we have determined that FCI Dublin is not meeting expected standards and that the best course of action is to close the facility.”

Peters did not give a timeline for the closure, and left doubts about whether the closure will be temporary or permanent. “The closure of the institution may be temporary but certainly will result in a mission change,” the agency’s statement reads. Both staff and 605 inmates will be transferred to other facilities, and no one will lose their jobs. The agency said it would try to send inmates to locations as close to their release locations as possible.

The prison came under significant scrutiny in February 2022, when the Associated Press ran a detailed exposé of a prison rife with sexual abuse that was known as the “rape club.” According to the article, numerous guards and administrators sexually abused multiple inmates, and threatened retaliation if inmates told or did not comply.

Since the article, the Bureau of Prisons pledged to change the prison, and lengthy investigations began. Eight former employees, including the warden and the chaplain, have been charged with sex crimes. Seven were convicted, and were sentenced to anywhere from five to seven years in prison.

In August 2023, eight inmates sued the Bureau of Prisons, alleging that it had been negligent in preventing sexual abuse. In March, the FBI raided the facility for still unknown reasons, and fired the new warden after less than three months on the job. The warden was accused of retaliating against a whistleblower inmate.

A few days later, a judge ordered an unprecedented ‘special master’ to oversee the prison, the first time a Bureau of Prisons facility was placed under such oversight in U.S. history. In the order, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers called the prison a “dysfunctional mess” in need of “dire change.” In addition to the sexual abuse, an investigation revealed mold and asbestos in the prison.

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