A federal investigation accuses California's prison system of failing to protect incarcerated women from sexual abuse by guards<\/p>\n
Los Angeles — Los Angeles (AP) \u2014 California 's prison system has systematically failed to protect incarcerated women from sexual abuse and harassment by guards, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.<\/p>\n
The federal investigation also found that California's corrections department failed to provide victims with a way to report sexual abuse and harassment without retaliation. On top of that, staff who were tasked with investigating the misconduct were often themselves accused of sexual abuse or harassment.<\/p>\n
The investigation, which began during the Biden administration, focused on two state prisons: the Central California Women\u2019s Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino. It uncovered numerous instances where guards regularly sexually abused incarcerated women. In at least one instance, a guard was convicted of rampant abuse over roughly a decade and sentenced to 224 years in prison.<\/p>\n
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement that it \u201cenforces a zero-tolerance policy as mandated by the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act,\u201d a federal law passed in 2003 designed to prevent sexual assaults in prisons.<\/p>\n
The state agency also said that audits conducted by independent entities trained by the DOJ found the two prisons were in compliance with federal standards as recently as 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cCDCR is fully committed to supporting victims of sexual assault and ensuring safe avenues exist for both incarcerated persons and staff to confidentially report misconduct,\u201d spokesperson Will Matthews wrote in an email.<\/p>\n
Over the course of the DOJ investigation, the prison agency independently investigated and prosecuted both staff and incarcerated people who violated federal rape prevention laws, he added.<\/p>\n
Emily Wonder, who works for Sister Warriors, which advocates for incarcerated women and transgender people, said state audits evaluate prison conditions based on a very \u201clow bar\u201d that allows abuse and neglect to slip through the cracks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's not a very strong protection mechanism in general,\u201d Wonder said. Sister Warriors, other groups and lawmakers are pushing for additional legislation to bolster protections for women, increase opportunities for reporting misconduct and improve transparency.<\/p>\n
Federal authorities echoed that assessment on Thursday, saying that there weren\u2019t sufficient mechanisms for victims to come forward.<\/p>\n
Women were told to report misconduct on an online system that wasn\u2019t confidential and that accused officers had access to, according to Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.<\/p>\n
Dhillon said that women are \u201cfully aware of this gap in confidentiality, and this serves as a deterrent from women reporting this misconduct.\u201d She named at least one sergeant whose job was to investigate misconduct who was himself sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to receiving child sexual abuse images at work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe upshot of our investigation is that California\u2019s prison system, when it comes to women, has inadequate systems in place to deter, detect, and hold accountable rampant sexual misconduct and assault on female prisoners,\u201d Dhillon said at a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press has previously exposed similar patterns of rampant abuse by federal prison staff against women held in a Dublin, California, facility that at the time was nicknamed the \u201crape club.\u201d The prison was closed following the AP investigation.<\/p>\n