Warden is ousted as FBI raids California women’s prison known as the ‘rape club’

FBI agents raided a federal women’s prison in California this week so plagued by sexual abuse that it was known among inmates and workers as the “rape club.” The action coincided with the ouster of the new warden from the federal correctional institution in Dublin. In March 2023, the judge referred to the prison’s “culture of sexual abuse” in sentencing Garcia, the former warden, whom she said had perpetuated that culture. “It’s important the world see this egregious conduct and see this serious penalty.” The class-action lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons alleges that FCI Dublin and other federal agencies failed to prevent, detect and investigate sexual abuse, placing those being held at the prison at substantial risk of sexual assault. But lawyers say those reforms were “ultimately ineffective or abandoned.” By the early 2010s, they note, “a dozen FCI Dublin employees were removed for sexual abuse, including one who videotaped himself having sex with inmates and stored tapes in a prison locker — but none were arrested.” In 2019, a U.S. House subcommittee on national security found widespread misconduct in the federal prison system, with officials being shuffled from place to place.