Abuse exposed of female inmates at US prison

WASHINGTON－Inside one of the federal women's prisons in the United States, inmates say they have been subjected to rampant sexual abuse by correctional officers and even the warden, and were often threatened or punished when they tried to speak up.

Prisoners and workers at the federal correctional institution in Dublin, California, even have a name for it－"The rape club".

An Associated Press investigation found a permissive and toxic culture at the Bay Area lockup, enabling years of sexual misconduct by predatory employees and cover-ups that have largely kept the abuse out of the public eye.

The Associated Press obtained internal Bureau of Prisons documents, statements and recordings from inmates, interviewed current and former prison employees and reviewed thousands of pages of court records from criminal and civil cases involving Dublin prison staff.

Together, these materials detailed how inmates' allegations against members of the mostly male staff were ignored or set aside, how prisoners could be sent to solitary confinement for reporting abuse and how officials in charge of preventing and investigating sexual misconduct were themselves accused of abusing inmates or neglecting their concerns.

A female inmate said her male prison work supervisor taunted her by remarking "let the games begin" when he assigned her to work with a maintenance foreman she had accused of rape.

Another worker claimed he wanted to get inmates pregnant. The warden kept nude photos on his government-issued cellphone of a woman he is accused of assaulting, prosecutors said.

Another inmate said she was "overwhelmed with fear, anxiety and anger, and cried uncontrollably" after enduring abuse and retaliation.

A third inmate said she contemplated suicide when her cries for help went unheeded, and now suffers from severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Any sexual activities between a prison worker and an inmate are illegal. Correctional employees enjoy substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent.

The allegations at Dublin, which have so far resulted in four arrests, are at the endemic of a larger problem within the beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons, or BOP.

In 2020, there were 422 complaints of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse across the system of 122 prisons and 153,000 inmates. The agency said it substantiated only four of them and that 290 are still under investigation.

The Associated Press contacted lawyers for every Dublin prison employee charged with sexual abuse or named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging abuse, and tried directly reaching the men through phone numbers and email addresses. None responded to interview requests.

Thahesha Jusino, who will take over as Dublin's warden later this month, promised to "work tirelessly to reaffirm the Bureau of Prisons' zero tolerance for sexual abuse and sexual harassment".

Culture of misconduct

She said the agency is fully cooperating with the Justice Department's inspector general on active investigations and noted that a "vast majority" of these cases were referred for investigation by the BOP itself.

"I am committed to ensuring the safety of our inmates, staff, and the public," Jusino said in a statement to The Associated Press. "A culture of misconduct, or actions not representative of the BOP's Core Values will not be tolerated."

Federal Correctional Institution Dublin, about 30 kilometers east of Oakland, is one of six women-only facilities in the federal prison system. As of Feb 1, it had about 750 inmates, many of them serving sentences for drug crimes.

Female inmates made the first internal complaints to staff members about five years ago, court records and internal agency documents revealed, but it is unclear whether those complaints ever went anywhere. The women said they were largely ignored and the abuse continued.

One who reported a 2017 sexual assault said she was told nothing would be done about her complaint. The woman, who is suing the BOPs over her treatment, said she was fired from her prison commissary job as retaliation.

In 2020, an inmate's report that two Dublin workers were abusing inmates made its way to the US Justice Department's inspector general and the FBI, triggering a criminal probe that has led to the arrest of four employees, including former warden Ray J. Garcia, in the past seven months.

They each face up to 15 years in prison, though in other recent cases, sentences have ranged from three months to two years.

Two are expected to plead guilty in the coming weeks in federal court to charges of sexual abuse of a ward. Several other Dublin workers are under investigation.

Agencies Via Xinhua