Category: Organizing Updates

Dublin CA 

Over one hundred advocacy organizations from across California and the United States have sent a public letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) demanding that the agency take immediate steps to address systemic abuse at the Federal Correctional Institute at Dublin (FCI Dublin), a federal women’s prison in Dublin, California.

The public letter comes after federal prosecutors have charged four FCI Dublin staff with sexually abusing people in their custody over a period of several years, and in the wake of a recent investigation by the Associated Press which revealed a deep-seated “culture of abuse” at the facility.

The signatories–which include the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, Centro Legal de la Raza, California National Organization for Women (NOW), Color of Change, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, The Sentencing Project, Project South, and Survived and Punished – call on the DOJ to take immediate action to address the root causes of this abuse and support incarcerated survivors. The groups demand that the DOJ:

• Launch an independent, comprehensive investigation into staff abuse and complicity in abuse, including retaliation against survivors and their supporters;
•  Create of unmonitored lines of communication for incarcerated people to report staff misconduct to an external, independent organization;
• Release individuals who have been impacted by staff sexual abuse into the community;
• Provide accessible, comprehensive medical care, including mental health care, to incarcerated survivors of staff abuse.

Diana Block, a longtime advocate with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, emphasized: “We know that the arrest, conviction, or incarceration of a handful of bad actors will not bring justice for survivors of abuse at FCI Dublin. The DOJ must take swift, sweeping action to address the institutional culture that allowed staff to perpetrate this abuse. Survivors and community organizations must be involved to break through the closed, toxic culture and conduct of FCI Dublin and the  BOP.”

Deyci Carrillo, an advocate with Centro Legal de la Raza, added: “It is impossible for FCI Dublin and the BOP to correct these egregious violations themselves. This is the third time in three decades that FCI Dublin staff have been publicly accused of sexual abuse. In the last several years, survivors who attempted to report abuse were discouraged or prevented by facility staff, and others who did report faced retaliation. Survivors are extremely vulnerable, and a disproportionate number of those impacted by this abuse are immigrants who live with the threat of deportation after incarceration. The Department of Justice must intervene.”

Advocates are awaiting a response from DOJ officials, and will continue to push for immediate, systemic action.