Alan Montecillo: The following episode discusses sexual abuse. Please take care while listening. I’m Alan Montecillo in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. In the East Bay suburb of Dublin, there is a women’s prison with a notorious reputation.
Alan Montecillo: The Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin or FCI Dublin, has been operating since the 70s. It’s known for a culture of sexual abuse, retaliation and cover ups. The prison has been referred to as a rape club and this has gone on for decades.
Amaris Montes: Some of these cases, I think it have some of the most horrific facts. And if there isn’t systemic change, things will just continue to be the same.
Alan Montecillo: Last week, federal agents raided FCI Dublin. The Bureau of Prisons, which operates the facility, faces dozens of lawsuits from survivors. And on Friday, a judge ordered an independent third party to oversee the prison. Today we’ll talk about FCI Dublin and what it’ll take to actually change it.
Sydney Johnson: Allegations of sexual abuse at FCI Dublin date back decades.
Alan Montecillo: Sydney Johnson is a reporter for KQED.
Sydney Johnson: A group of women back in the 90s actually sued the prison for sexual abuse that had been happening then.
Robin Lucas: I was 27. Now I’m 57, but she ought to be 58 a couple months.
Sydney Johnson: So one of them was a woman named Robin Lucas, and in 1995, a guard sexually assaulted her while she was staying in a maximum security unit.
Robin Lucas: I was working out of control. Probably would have been to partner because I had that trauma. So I kept asking myself, why did they do it?
Sydney Johnson: And when Robin went to report this, she said that it was downplayed, that folks didn’t take it seriously, and that they basically told her, you know why you’re making such a big deal out of this.
Robin Lucas: You know, the Captain Smith told me, why are you complaining? I asked him, how would you feel if this happened to your mother, your daughter, your wife, her aunt, your childhood friend? What would you say?
Sydney Johnson: She, along with two others who were incarcerated at FCI Dublin at the time, sued and reached a $500,000 settlement in 1998.
Robin Lucas: So they may have taken a stash off my rosy lenses, a question that that night they did not kill me. They didn’t stop my heart pounding.
Sydney Johnson: In this latest iteration of this scandal. She’s been present in the courtroom just supporting survivors, but also speaking out at press conferences. One thing that she has said was that she had hoped that her experience, you know, almost three decades ago, could have ended this. You know, that that was such a horrific example. She won her case that that could maybe change things. And what she is often talking about these days is that it’s a lot of the same types of testimony and a lot of the same types of lawsuits that are still coming forward.
Robin Lucas: I’m here to say from my reflection, 30 years of sitting here watching and listening. We must make changes.
Alan Montecillo: That’s what’s really hard about this story, is that people like Robin spoke out decades ago, and the same problems seem to be there. And, you know, in the last few years, there’s been a lot of recent news, lots of lawsuits. There is an Associated Press investigation. What kind of details have come to light in more recent years?
Sydney Johnson: So the AP investigation really revealed some longstanding patterns of abuse at the prison. Things like multiple guards that were participating in forcing rape and other sex acts in exchange for things like access to commissary or even leaving, someone’s cell. Everything from some women saying that they were inappropriately patted down to others being watched, and reports of voyeurism. Also reports of being forced down.
Sydney Johnson: That there was one woman who said that this happened repeatedly to her. Other instances where there was retaliation for reporting sexual abuse, whether that was a firsthand experience or something that was witnessed. One woman who testified in some hearings that I went and listened in to in January, said that she was working in the kitchen and saw an officer having sex with, inmate, and that she was horrified.
Sydney Johnson: You know, she was afraid of what might happen if she came forward and said something. She knew it wasn’t right, and she ultimately felt that she couldn’t report it, because that she had heard all these other stories of retaliation from her peers. And she had a history of of trauma and abuse just in her own life. So you can really start to see how some of these things start to compound and really start to spread culturally as well.
Sydney Johnson: Since then, eight prison staff were actually charged with some of these sex crimes. Seven of them have been convicted or pled guilty. That included a former warden, the chaplain and other guards on site. And one case is still pending currently.
Alan Montecillo: Is this prison an outlier, Sydney?
Sydney Johnson: Attorneys that I’ve spoken to, who are representing the plaintiffs in this case, have said that Dublin has had some of the most egregious examples of sexual abuse that they have encountered across even other cases in the prison system. At the same time, women’s prisons in this country have a pretty horrible reputation for abuses like this.
Sydney Johnson: I mean, so much so that we saw a popular culture show, Orange Is the New Black, that really harped on a lot of these themes, almost. So even alongside some of these broader systemic issues and, and challenges that we know exist at women’s prisons and just power dynamics that happen there. Advocates for people who are currently incarcerated at Dublin said that this is some of the worst repeated violence that they have seen.
Alan Montecillo: Have there been any attempts to stop it, either in the form of recourse for victims or policy changes? I mean, this isn’t new information, but it keeps happening.
Sydney Johnson: Yeah, of course, you know, any type of sexual assault or retaliation for reporting such is against the law. It violates the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which President Bush signed into law in 2003. But FCI Dublin, you know, there have been some changes since this all started coming to light to the warden, chaplain and other six officers who were charged early on when this scandal broke. You know, of course, no longer work at the prison.
Sydney Johnson: An entirely new administration has essentially stepped in, and officials say that they have really revamped their reporting process. One of the officials who testified in January said that they have been putting up new signs informing inmates about how they can report issues when they see them and in general said that they’re trying to just increase understanding among guards and people who are incarcerated there about these reporting protocols.
Sydney Johnson: But just last week, the latest warden, who is the third to step in since the scandal broke, was removed from the position. So alongside some of these efforts that they are reporting, it’s also been a bit of a revolving door. And at the same time, these abuses have kept happening in a way that it’s been handled so far, mainly case by case.
Alan Montecillo: Coming up, we’ll talk about the most recent attempts to hold the prison accountable. Stay with us.
Alan Montecillo: Let’s talk about this latest round of news, Sydney, because it’s obviously an indication that despite attempts to change training, to change staff, to remind people what their rights are. This hasn’t solved the problem. So let’s start with the news that at least a dozen FBI agents raided FCI Dublin last week. What’s happening there?
Sydney Johnson: On March 12th, the FBI raided the prison. They took computers and other documents, and we still don’t really know exactly what prompted the raid. Federal investigators have been pretty tight lipped about it, but it’s certainly interesting. And seeing that the warden was removed from his position alongside that raid. But this is a federal prison.
Sydney Johnson: You have a federal judge that is deciding whether or not there should be changes mandated at this prison. Meanwhile, you have the Department of Justice defending itself against these plaintiffs in the case. And you have the FBI raiding separate to all of this. So really, it’s it’s kind of like the Department of Justice is investigating itself in a way. And it’s very complicated, for lack of a better word.
Alan Montecillo: There are also all of these lawsuits, right. How many are there again? And have they led to any changes?
Sydney Johnson: Yeah. So FCI Dublin is currently faced with 63 lawsuits total. Those are individual lawsuits. And 12 of those ones were very recently filed. Just about a week ago on Friday, there was some pretty big news where actually a third party special master was appointed by a federal judge to come in and actually monitor whether the prison is making some changes and actually substantially trying to address some of these reports and patterns, really, of abuse that have been going on for decades there.
Alan Montecillo: So is this third party special master. Just kind of a strange name. Does this represent a major change for this facility compared to some of the other attempts at changing things in the past?
Sydney Johnson: Yeah, appointing the special master is a pretty big deal. This is the first time that such a, you know, third party oversight has been provided at a federal prison. So it’s pretty unique for actually the entire system, but definitely unique for FCI Dublin, because they have been handling all these lawsuits on a case by case basis. Lawsuit by lawsuit. Not that there haven’t been attempts to clean up some of those problems that have existed at the prison as well.
Sydney Johnson: Some of the administration has changed. You know, there’s been several convictions already, but up until this point at the special master, it’s kind of been this pattern of reports come out and someone gets in trouble, but then no major systemic change follows. So advocates and attorneys for the plaintiffs in this case were pushing for this third party overseer. And just last week they got what they wanted.
Alan Montecillo: And I know the judge who ordered this special master had some pretty strong words for the prison. Right?
Sydney Johnson: Right. Yeah. It’s U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, and she wrote the Federal Correctional Institute. FCI Dublin is a dysfunctional mess. The situation can no longer be tolerated. The facility is in dire need of immediate change.
Alan Montecillo: Wow. What kind of relief or justice, if any? Has there been for people like Rob and Lucas: who have already come forward and, and talked about what’s happened to them?
Sydney Johnson: The Federal Bureau of Prisons has paid out a lot of money in some of these cases. You look at Robin Lucas, and that was a $500,000 settlement case back in the 90s. You know, some of these lawsuits right now are obviously still pending. But in the meantime, several of the guards and officers who were charged have already been sentenced. So we’re seeing some of that accountability.
Sydney Johnson: Whether or not that’s justice, I think is a huge debate, of course. But one thing that I did hear from some of the women who testified in January, even who had to go back to FCI Dublin at the end of the day and, you know, face some of the guards that they were potentially making serious allegations over that having the opportunity to even raise some of this and speak in a courtroom was a type of justice as well, even if it doesn’t end the way that they’re hoping that it will.
Sydney Johnson: But I think it was something where for a lot of these women, they’ve seen these abuses go on. And it’s been a culture of silence and fear and being able to have some voice to it, I think, has given some of the women that I heard from, if not justice, a moment of it.
Alan Montecillo: Sydney, you know, this federal prison is right here in the Bay area. And there really have been, you know, decades of sexual abuse, and yet that things seem to be more or less the same. What will it take to change this, to stop it?
Sydney Johnson: I mean, we’ve seen so many stories by FCI Dublin, but, you know, there’s also San Quentin is in the news a lot. Santa Rita jail. One thing I think that’s, you know, worth pointing out. There’s been a lot of interest in recent years in prison reform. You know, things like diversion programs, which, for example, might send someone to treatment rather than jail time or things like, you know, mobile crisis teams that can respond to certain emergencies rather than police trying to just redirect certain responses.
Amaris Montes: The poison runs deeper than, these few line level officers.
Sydney Johnson: Amaris Montez is the director of West Coast litigation, rights behind bars. And, you know, she talks about how there needs to be more than just this revolving door of administrative officials and that there needs to be some sort of serious cultural change there.
Amaris Montes: There are still officers who are have not been criminally prosecuted. There are still officers who have not been removed from their positions, or even if they are removed, they’re sent to other facilities. Criminal prosecution is not necessarily going to solve all the issues, and neither is, you know, removing officers. But even at the base of what they are saying as a solution, they’re still not doing that. So it reinforces the idea that what is needed is policy changes.
Sydney Johnson: You know, still, women and non-binary people are not often at the center of these discussions and criminal justice reform. Still, even though women are the fastest growing segment of the prison population right now in the country. And so I think those two things side by side is just something that we’re going to have to reckon with a little bit more if things are going to change. Survivors that I heard from, they just want to feel safe.
Robin Lucas: You know, a predator when we see something I was thinking about, it raises your hair on the back of your neck.
Sydney Johnson: People like Robin Lucas: said that they are paying their debt to society. Why are they having to endure this type of violence over and over again?
Robin Lucas: You do not put a predator amongst women who are vulnerable and aren’t under the care of the poppy. The government just try and stop the staff from treating us like animals. In the first paragraph of the policy, the be open policy, it says every inmate must be treated like a single human being.
Sydney Johnson: Really, what folks want is the opportunity to be safe in this environment and serve their sentence without fear of violence.
Alan Montecillo: Sydney. Thank you.
Sydney Johnson: Thank you.
