Decades of allegations of sexual abuse at the women’s prison at FCI-Dublin led to the stunning decision by the Bureau of Prisons to shut down the prison altogether.
A special master was appointed by the judge, who noted, “that some of the deficiencies and issues exposed within this report are likely an indication of systemwide issues within the BOP, rather than simply within FCI-Dublin.”
Survivors of staff sexual abuse and retaliation at FCI-Dublin held an event in Oakland this weekend to share their experiences and provide updates about the class-action lawsuit filed last year.
In advance of the event, the Vanguard sat down over Zoom with two of the survivors as well as one of the staff attorneys.
Darlene Baker was incarcerated at Dublin from April 2022 until she was released in February 2023.
“About a month after I entered the camp, a medical officer sexually assaulted me in a violent way, locked the door, and it was quite upsetting afterwards when he let me out, I reported it to two psychologists and to a doctor, and there was no remedy from reporting it,” she explained.
Her family ended up connecting her with Congresswoman Jackie Spiers.
“I became whistleblower for her office Congressional whistleblower during my time there,” she said explaining she was among several to sign releases for their records to go to a December 2023 Senate Hearing.
“I very clearly remember how we all felt when I was there, and I was there a short term compared to many others, but there was feelings of despair and futility and that there was nothing we could do while we were in there. And we watched atrocities happen every day,” Baker said.
Kendra Drydale was assault by her counselor who assaulted her during a pat down search. She reported it to the DOJ.
“I had been warned by other people, do not report it inside the BOP, the retaliation is horrible,” Drysdale said. “So I reported it directly to the DOJ, the OIG staff email that is supposed to be completely confidential and not be revealed that you reported anything within the BOP. However, that did not happen for me.”
Instead, within an hour of her sending the email, Drysdale said she was seen by an internal BOP psychologist.
“That is still an ongoing question of how when you report something to that email, and it’s not just happening in this BOP, it’s apparently happening in all of that, somehow the BOP is finding out about it and then acting on it,” she said.
The BOP retaliated against her – she was served with an incident report saying that she was lying in order to file a complaint.
“Now mind you, it was on camera what happened,” she said. “so, I was shocked that they would say I was lying.”
She said the retaliation was horrible – they fired her from her job, took her commissary rights for seven months, and “The biggest thing they took from me was my date – my (release) date. I was supposed to leave in October, and they raised my points, so I wasn’t unable to leave.”
She ended up being over-incarcerated by four or five months.
Drysdale said that she was at Dublin when they decided to close the prison.
“We learned that by the television that said across the bottom of the screen at 6:00 AM in the morning, the Dublin prison closing today. And we were all shocked because absolutely nothing had been told to us that the prison was closing or anyone was being transferred,” she explained.
At the same time, a new warden came in who gave her “me an expungement for my incident report saying, and it literally said that after watching the same footage that they used to give you this shot, we’ve determined that that’s no longer the case and that you weren’t lying. So after seven months of punishment over incarceration and all that for reporting something, now they can come back and say, oh, our bad. We watched the footage and you weren’t lying at all.”
Drysdale continued, “that would never have happened if it wasn’t for all the pressure from the attorneys and from the judge. And that just goes to show you what they do when something’s reported, they shove it under the rug and they punish you for reporting it.”
Susan Beaty is a Senior Attorney with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.
“I started going to FCI Dublin in 2017 to work with and represent immigrant women who were incarcerated at the facility and were facing or vulnerable to deportation,” Beaty said. “And it was through that work that a number of clients started coming to us, and as we were working on their immigration cases, sharing that they had been or were being sexually assaulted by guards.”
Along with other organizations and attorneys came to together, and she is co-counsel on the class action lawsuit that led to the appointment of the Special Master and ultimately the closure of the facility.
“I think what happened at Dublin was horrendous and egregious and just the scale and sort of blatant … of the abuse that went on for years and years and dozens and dozens of people were assaulted and abused is pretty shocking,” she explained. “. I think though what anyone who’s been inside and folks who’ve worked alongside people in prison for long enough will tell you is that fortunately Dublin’s not unique. That abuse is inherent to our prison system. It’s happening in anywhere where people are incarcerated.”
In her view what made Dublin unique is that there were so many women who “spoke out and stood up for themselves and each other, and there were advocates in the community that worked alongside them. I think the attention that has been given, the resources, which were never enough, but the attention given the resources given to Dublin because of how many survivors spoke out, because of how many advocates were there to support them, the fact that there is this sprawling criminal investigation and congressional inquiries and all this media attention.”
That said, she continued, “, I think if you dug deep enough and long enough in any prison, especially any women’s prison, you would uncover similarly horrendous abuse.”
She said, “I think the scale of what happened to Dublin is horrendous, but the fact that it is so baked into our carceral system is I think something that would be deeply surprising to people who don’t have experience with the system.”
Perhaps most alarming is the fact that Beaty said that she had a client report that she was raped to the US Attorneys, the FBI, and the BOP in 2018, “Her abuser wasn’t charged and convicted for another four years.”
Beaty said that the woman participated in the prosecution of the man ultimately from outside the US even though she was permanently barred from reentering the US.
“One of the first survivors I worked with was a woman who was subsequently deported. She’s permanently barred from entering the US permanently, separated from her family,” she said. “She was repeatedly raped by the facility chaplain throughout 2017 and 2018.”
She wrote to the attorneys and the FBI and was interviewed. She had a medical examination and a rape kit.
Beaty said, “He denied having assaulted her. They didn’t charge him. They refused to support her or help prevent her deportation in any way. And she was permanently deported.”
The fact that a US Attorney and the FBI failed to intervene or follow up seems like a major failure of the system.
“The system has failed,” Beaty said. “(The system) has failed survivors at every turn for years. And she’s unfortunately, one of dozens of women who were assaulted by staff at Dublin and have been deported, have not been offered protection or safeguarded from deportation by any of these federal law enforcement agencies.”
This was the problem we see in both Darlene and Kendra’s cases as well.
“I reported the incident to two different psychologists,” Darlene Baker said. “One was, shut your mouth. We don’t do any mental health care. If you become bad enough to where you’re suicidal, we’ll put you in the SHU for your safekeeping.”
Baker continued, “And the other psychologist said, go outside of this facility. This is not safe for you to report. And that was my experience internally. I did not try to go anywhere in SIS or Lieutenant Putnam or any of those because I have watched other women not have any success internally.”
Beaty explained, “. I can say that there are policies and regulations that require, there is supposed to be a policy that BOP staff are supposed to follow when someone comes to them to say they’ve been harmed by a staff member. They did not follow those policies for years. They are not following them now. And Darlene’s experience is unfortunately, I think a really common one.”
Kendra Drysdale reported it outside the BOP to the DOI and OIG but again, the BOP found out about it.
But Drysdale said, “. I think giving them a voice little bit by little bit, I think by giving them a voice, letting them know, because that’s what changed everything for us, was knowing we had advocacy. So the more we reach out, and that’s part of what this weekend is about, is expanding that with other survivors. So bringing them in. And so we can just have eyes and ears and a voice throughout each facility.”
She added, “This is not just happening at Dublin, it’s happening everywhere.”
She added, “the big thing is just the pressure on the BOP, and I hope that this lawsuit does that, is that their ability, and now that we have also the Federal Oversight Act passed, then now they have some sort of oversight before everything was just policed by themselves and they were able to shove everything under the rug where I don’t think that’s going to happen anymore.”
“I think I’m hoping that those things change,” she said.
