BOP Settles ‘Rape Club’ Lawsuit, Says Dublin Prison Will Not Reopen

It also laid to rest any rumors that the prison on the San Francisco Bay would see a new life as a men’s prison. The City of Dublin bemoaned the loss of the prison– and the 200 jobs it provided– in a Dec. 9 post on its website.

The BOP didn’t stop at the California border. Six other minimum-security facilities also closed a few weeks before Christmas. Those sites are Federal Prison Camps Duluth (Minnesota), Morgantown (West Virginia), Pensacola (Florida) and Federal Correctional Institutes Englewood (Colorado), Loretto Camp (Pennsylvania) and Oxford Camp (Wisconsin).

The Associated Press reported on Dec.5 that a BOP document cited “critical staffing shortage, crumbling infrastructure and limited budgetary resources” as reasons for its actions. The AP said the bureau stressed that it is not downsizing “and is committed to finding positions for every affected employee.”

The consolidation means transferring hundreds of staff and thousands of inmates to other facilities. It will also affect the families of those employees and inmates.

Lawsuit Settlement: Hope for the Future or Empty Promises?

In a Dec. 18 press release, the Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld (RBGG) law firm said 103 “sexual abuse survivors” of FCI Dublin will share the settlement. It is the largest settlement in BOP history, the lawyers noted.

“The announcement comes shortly after BOP announced the permanent closure of the facility and agreed to enter into an unprecedented Consent Decree to resolve pending class action litigation about abuse and retaliation at FCI Dublin,” the law firm added.

“We were sentenced to prison, we were not sentenced to be assaulted and abused,” former inmate Aimee Chavira said in that press release. “I hope this settlement will help survivors, like me, as they begin to heal– but money will not repair the harm that BOP did to us, or free survivors who continue to suffer in prison, or bring back survivors who were deported and separated from their families. And money will not stop prison officials from continuing to abuse incarcerated people.”

Chavira said the U.S. government “must take real action to make sure that no one else suffers like we did at FCI Dublin.”

Other organizations involved in the Dublin case include the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition, Rights Behind Bars, California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice and the Arnold & Porter law firm.

The CCWP has worked to protect non-citizen victims from deportation, the law firm noted in its release. It has assisted others in filing requests for compassionate release. It has also requested President Joe Biden grant clemency “for survivors of sexual abuse” before he leaves office in January.

“This is not an FCI Dublin problem; it’s a BOP problem,” CCWP advocate Emily Shapiro said in the release. “The DOJ and the Biden administration know that sexual abuse and retaliation are rampant in federal prisons, but they have failed to enact the structural changes necessary to prevent future abuse.”

In a Dec. 6 press release, RBGG said the government agreed to settle the lawsuit “after a series of failed efforts to get the case thrown out.”

“This settlement is historic,” Rights Behind Bars attorney Amaris Montes added. “It is the first time in BOP history that monitoring will be enforced by consent decree across over a dozen federal women’s prisons nationwide. This reflects the lived reality of the class members in this lawsuit. The problems at FCI Dublin were not unique to that facility, and the BOP has failed people in its custody across the country.”

In that same press release, RBGG senior counsel Kara Janssen said the next task is to “hold BOP accountable to ensure these changes reach our class members. This is the end of one chapter, but much work remains for the next, and we will be there to make sure it happens.”

She said that “without rigorous monitoring and enforcement, this agreement is only words on paper.”

Congressman’s Comments

U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), who represents the Dublin area, noted the prison’s reputation for staff sexual misconduct and deplorable living conditions.

“While I am pleased that the decision has been made to permanently close FCI Dublin for the safety and security of those who were in custody there, the fact that we got to this point is deeply troubling,” DeSaulnier wrote in a prepared statement. “This closure also does not bring justice to the victims of the facility’s long and pervasive history of violations of constitutional rights, culture of sexual abuse, and failure to provide basic health care services.

“Facilities like FCI Dublin simply do not meet the United States’s standards, let alone those of the Bay Area, and we must do better,” he added.

In mid-June, DeSaulnier and 20 other congressmen sent a letter to BOP Director Colette Peters, expressing concerns about “shocking abuses that allegedly took place during the mass AIC transfers.” AIC stands for adults in custody.

These actions included “inhumane treatment and withholding of necessary medical care.” The congressmen added, “This level of disregard for human dignity cannot be tolerated.”

The congressmen asked if the BOP would enforce reforms “highlighted by the ongoing class-action lawsuit against FCI Dublin.”

Those reforms include providing a confidential third-party reporting mechanism for misconduct; access to counsel on an unmonitored phone line; availability of high quality, non-BOP/offsite medical and mental health care; changes to the use of solitary confinement/segregation, including against those who allege staff sexual assault and during any investigation.

It also calls for prisons to certify U-visas, which allow immigrant victims of certain crimes to remain in the U.S. and to more readily approve compassionate release for victims of sexual misconduct.

The consent decree approved in mid-December includes those reforms.

What Does the Consent Decree Require?

The consent decree applies to over 500 former inmates of FCI Dublin and is in force for two years.

Its key provisions include:

• Monitoring and monthly reporting on treatment and conditions of inmates, including any complaints of abuse and retaliation, medical care provided and applications for early release and timely release to halfway houses
• Ensuring inmates have confidential access to the consent decree monitor, attorneys, and counselors to report abuse and consent decree violations
• Limiting secure housing unit (SHU) confinement for low-level disciplinary charges that do not involve specific security threats and ensuring timely disciplinary proceedings
• Early-release credits that Dublin inmates lost due to their transfers to other facilities
• Releasing eligible inmates to halfway houses and home confinement as soon as practical, and not deny early release due to immigration status
• The BOP director must issue a formal, public acknowledgment to survivors of staff sexual abuse at FCI Dublin

Prior Events

The litany of sexual abuse allegations, convictions and guilty pleas involving FCI Dublin employees is well documented, including by The Daily Muck in Oct. 9 and Aug. 26 articles.

Eight women who survived abuse in FCI Dublin filed a class action lawsuit in August 2023. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers granted a preliminary injunction in March 2024 to protect inmates at Dublin. She cited an ongoing risk of abuse and unconstitutional living conditions.

She appointed a “special master,” the first in BOP’s history, to oversee the prison’s response to her findings. Soon after, the BOP closed Dublin and transferred its 600 female inmates to other sites across the country.

The closure resulted in allegations of mistreatment, lost belongings and retaliation against inmates. The BOP argued that the lawsuit sought to resolve issues in FCI Dublin. Since the was no longer open, it said the lawsuit was invalid and should be dismissed.

Rogers not-so-politely disagreed in several court orders.

Rogers had extended the court monitor’s oversight to Dec. 31. She said Dublin inmates’ rights were still in question even if they were not housed in FCI Dublin. She also expressed growing frustration with the BOP’s reluctance to accept a trial date for the lawsuit.

Rather than stand before a judge who had repeatedly pointed out their failings, the BOP blinked in this face-off and settled.

Was the federal penitentiary so unique that this drama will never play out again? Will it take its act “on the road” and play in other federal district courts with a federal prison? Only time will answer those questions.

Federal Prisons: Overcrowded and Understaffed

There are two related issues facing the federal prison system: understaffing and overcrowding. The consolidation may address the first by sending more warm bodies to fill prison staff uniforms at the remaining prisons. At the same time, at least to a layman’s eye, it seems it cannot help but worsen the second problem.

The Bureau of Prisons is massive by anyone’s definition. It has an $8.5 billion budget and responsibility for approximately 157,500 inmates as of the end of 2023, the BOP’s Office of Personnel Management stated in a March 2024 report.

The BOP houses over 144,000 inmates in its 122 prison facilities, and 14,500 are housed in state and local prisons, halfway houses and in-home confinement. No federal inmates are housed in private for-profit prisons. Only 7 percent of federal inmates are women.

The BOP anticipates the number of inmates to decrease by about 1,000 in the fiscal year that began in October, the report stated.

Among the many facts, figures and statistics in the March report is an estimate that 10 percent of BOP positions are vacant and its prisons are over capacity by 15,000 inmates.

“BOP facilities continue to have crowding, which is a contributing factor to increases in the number of serious assaults,” the OPM report stated. “The focus with this measure is to manage overcrowding in prisons and ensure adult-in-custody care and safety, as well as the safety of BOP staff and surrounding communities.”

BOP Director Addresses ‘Recruitment and Retention Crisis’

In July, BOP Director Peters told the Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance that the BOP “was a struggling agency” when she became director two years ago, according to a record of the hearing.

“What I found was that our recruitment and retention crisis and our dilapidated facilities are at the core of nearly all our challenges,” Peters said. “Low staffing levels impact our institutions’ operations, including safety and security, medical care, education, programming, and treatment.”

She said the agency’s priorities are “recruitment, retention, employee wellness, and maintenance and repair.”

Peters told the subcommittee the BOP is “making progress with our recruitment and retention crisis. When I joined the Bureau, we had 986 new hires for that entire calendar year. Already this year, we have onboarded over 1,400, and the even better news is that we are now hiring more people than are leaving the agency.”

The BOP’s plans and programs to address these issues include more home release detentions for low-risk inmates and pay incentives for recruitment and retention to fill vacant positions.

Peters told the subcommittee that the average base salary for a new officer is $55,000, which is not competitive. This results in new hires leaving for better-paying positions elsewhere.

“As an example,” she said, “at our facility in Massachusetts, one of our officers left because he got a better offer with better pay at the local grocery store. Ads in New York City offer corrections positions that pay $130,000 after three years, while our federal officers make tens of thousands of dollars less.”

The staffing shortage is very expensive, Peters said. The BOP paid $128 million in hiring incentives and over $345 million in overtime in 2023.

The Other Six ‘Victims’ of Consolidation

As noted earlier, Dublin is the most notorious of the Dec. 5 closures – but not the only one.

On the other side of the Capitol aisle from DeSaulnier, and half a continent away, U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) let it be known he is not on board the consolidation train. In a letter to Peters, Stauber expressed discontent that he and FPC Duluth employees were “blindsided” by the announcement.

Stauber said BOP blamed the closings on “staffing shortages and infrastructure challenges. On December 12, 2024, you and I had a phone call where you suggested that this decision has been in the works for two years. I am extremely disappointed that in two years, my office never received a phone call or correspondence to discuss the matter.”

Stauber said his staff asked BOP about the infrastructure of FPC Duluth. The BOP said it “had not received any Occupational Safety and Health Department activity. If there were concerns with the building infrastructure at FPC Duluth, it is strange that BOP did not identify concerns at the time so that my office could assist in remediation.”

The Duluth Republican said the BOP promises to transfer the camp’s 90 employees to FCI Sandstone– almost 70 miles away.

He said Peters and her staff “could not give me exact numbers” when he asked about the staffing at Sandstone. Stauber said Ruark Hotopp, vice president of the District 8 American Federation of Government Employees, told him Sandstone “is very well-staffed and will likely only be able to take on 15 of the approximately 90 employees from FPC Duluth.

“Details like staffing numbers of surrounding prisons would seem to be important in the reorganization decision-making process,” Stauber continued. “I am frustrated that these numbers were not taken into consideration.”

The Council of Prison Locals C-33 “has filed an injunction with the Federal Labor Relations Authority” to block the closure, he added.

Stauber said Peters told him that “budgetary constraints are driving you to close these prisons. Instead of eliminating the jobs of hardworking correctional officers and prison personnel, I would ask that you consider cutting unnecessary administrative costs, like expensive regional office buildings or senior executive service bonuses.”

Prison Consultant’s Comments

In an article on the impact of the prison closings, Christopher Zoukis of the South Carolina-based Zoukis Consulting Group gave a brief summary of issues at the other six facilities.

Zoukis said Duluth’s deactivation “comes after investigative reporting raised questions of abuse and concealment.” The consultant said staff and inmates have “voiced frustration over the abrupt deactivation, suggesting a lack of transparency in the process.”

Understaffing and deteriorating conditions were factors in closing FPC Morgantown in West Virginia.

FPC Pensacola will be demolished “due to structural and maintenance issues,” Zoukis said. “The closure underscores years of neglect and the BOP’s struggle to maintain minimum-security facilities safely.”

FCI Englewood Camp in Colorado has both “decrepit infrastructure and documented inmate abuse. The decision to close is tied to broader federal initiatives for improved inmate treatment,” Zoukis said.

FCI Loretto Camp in Pennsylvania is closing “to address longstanding issues related to staffing, resources, and inmate well-being.”

“Structural concerns and limited staff resources were significant factors in the decision to close FC Oxford Camp” in Wisconsin, Zoukis said. The decision caused “surprise and concern among local officials and families.”

Zoukis works with attorney Brandon Sample on prisoner rights cases. He said the closures “can be traumatic and disruptive for inmates. Being transferred to a new prison often means moving farther away from family members, complicating visitation and emotional support.

“The abrupt changes may also affect inmates’ program participation, job assignments, and educational opportunities,” he continued. “Families may face increased travel costs, reduced contact, and uncertainty regarding where their loved ones will be placed next.”

Difficult Choices

Coins have two sides and a double-edged sword cuts both ways. That is the situation seven communities and the BOP find themselves in now. Here are the difficult choices they face:

• Should they spend millions of dollars to renovate, remodel and repair aging facilities or slightly less accommodate the inmates in better-equipped, larger prisons?
• Is it better to make sweeping policy and personnel changes to remove cultures of abuse and corruption at some institutes or salt the earth of those facilities so that no such evil can ever grow there again?

The communities with planned closures fear jobs evaporating and citizens relocating. A decline in the consumer population affects local businesses. Property and sales tax revenues are likely to decline, at least in the near future. This impacts local governments’ ability to serve their remaining constituents.

If the BOP is serious about reforming, they have difficult choices to make and difficult roads to navigate.

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