The federal prison in Dublin, Ca., is one of just six women-only facilities in the system. As of Wednesday, Dublin had about 785 inmates, many serving sentences for drug crimes. Since March, nine workers have been placed on administrative leave by the Bureau of Prisons, the Associated Press reports. New inmate sexual abuse and staff employment discrimination complaints have been filed. FBI agents conducted searches at the prison and an employee’s home in mid-April, and at least six internal affairs investigators have been on site investigating claims. Michael Carvajal, head of the federal Bureau of Prisons, reluctantly answered the cries for help from inmates by bringing in a task force.
Officials moved inmates out of a special housing unit so it wouldn’t look as full when the task force got there. They lied to Carvajal about COVID-19 contamination so inmates in a certain unit couldn’t speak to him about abuse. Those who managed to get to Carvajal didn’t hold back. In one emotional scene, a woman who said she was abused by prison officials tearfully confronted him in a recreation area as he and members of the task force were meeting with inmates. In another charged moment, a group of Dublin workers lashed out at Carvajal for putting Roy Garcia, who has been replaced as warden, in charge of a women’s prison when he’d already had a reputation in prison circles as a misogynist. Garcia is accused of molesting an inmate on multiple occasions from December 2019 to March 2020 and forcing her and another inmate to strip naked so he could take pictures while he made rounds. Investigators found the images on his government-issued cellphone.