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See the full story · 4 sourcesThe federal government on Thursday gave California's prison system 49 days to remediate the conditions that enabled the rampant abuse
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Women incarcerated in California were systematically failed by the prison system and were not adequately protected from sexual abuse and harassment by guards, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday.
The federal investigation , which began during the Biden administration, found that California’s corrections department also failed to give victims a safe way to report sexual abuse and harassment without retaliation. Staff who were tasked with investigating the misconduct were oftentimes also accused of sexual abuse or harassment.
Two state prisons were the focus of the investigation: the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino.
Women were told to report misconduct on an online system that wasn’t confidential and that the accused officers had access to, according to Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
Numerous instances were uncovered where guards regularly sexually abused incarcerated women.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not respond to an email seeking comment.
In at least one instance, a guard was convicted of rampant abuse over roughly a decade and sentenced to 224 years in prison.
Inmates were instructed to log complaints of mistreatment using an online portal that lacked privacy and could be viewed by accused officers, according to Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
Dhillon explained that incarcerated women are "fully aware of this gap in confidentiality, and this serves as a deterrent from women reporting this misconduct." She highlighted a sergeant assigned to handle internal investigations who received a 15-year prison sentence following a guilty plea for obtaining child sexual abuse material at work.
Speaking at a Los Angeles media briefing on Thursday, Dhillon stated: "The upshot of our investigation is that California’s 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."
Comparable widespread offenses by federal corrections personnel against incarcerated females were previously uncovered by The Associated Press at a Dublin, California facility dubbed the "rape club." That site was ultimately shuttered after the news organization’s reporting was published.
The federal government on Thursday gave California's prison system 49 days to remediate the conditions that enabled the rampant abuse, warning that a failure to do so could result in civil litigation.
The measures include expanded camera coverage, enhanced confidential reporting channels and strengthened investigative protocol.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who was appointed by President Donald Trump as the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said California has to take action.
“The State must confront the persistent failure of its own employees to prevent and address sexual abuse at these facilities,” Essayli wrote in a statement, “and the systemic breakdowns that have permitted these conditions to persist.”
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