The Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin (FCI Dublin) was a low-security United States federal prison for female inmates in Dublin, California. The facility had an adjacent satellite prison camp housing minimum-security female offenders.
FCI Dublin was located 20 miles southeast of Oakland. It was located near Santa Rita Jail, which is operated by Alameda County.
FCI Dublin opened in 1974. It became an exclusively female prison in 2012 and was one of five federal prisons for women in the United States. In 2021 and 2022, the facility was embroiled in a scandal over a permissive and toxic culture of rampant sexual abuse by staff at the facility. After 60 Minutes aired a special in January 2024 titled "Agency In Crisis", the FBI raided the FCI Dublin and shortly after, the Bureau of Prisons announced its closure on April 15, 2024.
The prison's education department offered GED and ESL programs, as well as courses in parenting skills. The prison also provided legal and leisure library services in addition to training in the use of various computer software.
There were two Federal Prison Industries UNICOR programs at FCI Dublin: the Textiles and the Call Center. Textiles employed approximately 150 inmates on the manufacture of custom draperies, parachutes, and disaster blankets. They also sorted and repaired USPS mailbags. The Call Center employed around 250 inmates on directory assistance inquiries.
It housed inmates who were serving an average sentence of 5 years. It had a design capacity of 250 inmates, but housed 1,077 as of April 11, 2013. Conditions were cramped, with three inmates sharing a cell on the top tier and four inmates sharing a cell on the bottom tier, designed to house a single prisoner. Meals were served in shifts due to the small size of the dining facilities.
Like most American prisons, FCI Dublin also contained a SHU (Secure Housing Unit), where any prisoners who were deemed to have broken prison rules were kept in segregation under a highly restrictive regime. Prisoners in the SHU spent more time locked in their cell than the general prison population, were only allowed out for limited amounts of time and had to be transported to and from their cell wearing handcuffs. Depending on the circumstances, an inmate might have spent weeks or even months in the SHU.
FCI Dublin was surrounded by two separate fences with a gap of approximately between them. Measuring high, each chain-link fence was reinforced with multiple coils of razor wire (at the top and bottom) plus electronic sensors to detect escape attempts.
The institution also had an adjacent administrative detention facility housing adult males on holdover or pre-trial status, and a minimum-security satellite camp housing adult female offenders, which opened in 1990. This minimum-security camp consisted of several old army barracks and these were torn down. The BOP removed a section of the FCI and placed approximately 200 female minimum security prisoners in this space. This facility was just short of an FCI. All the guards were rotated out of the FCI.
On November 5, 1986, Ronald McIntosh, who had escaped during a prison transfer one month earlier, landed a stolen helicopter in the exercise yard and escaped with Samantha Lopez, who was serving a 50-year sentence for bank robbery. Mr. McIntosh was serving a sentence for wire fraud when he met Ms. Lopez working in the business office of the prison and the two devised the escape plan. They were arrested by FBI Agents 10 days later and subsequently convicted of air piracy and escape. McIntosh received a 25-year sentence and Lopez had five years added to her sentence.
A 2022 investigation by the Associated Press reported a "permissive and toxic culture... of sexual misconduct by predatory employees". The AP reported that inmates alleged "rampant sexual abuse by correctional officers", and that prisoners were allegedly "threatened or punished when they tried to speak up". The environment of sexual abuse was so notorious, the inmates and workers called the facility "the rape club."
In 2022, the prison chaplain was sentenced to 7 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing an inmate and lying to federal agents about the misconduct. Former warden Ray J. Garcia was found guilty of sexual offenses against prisoners and sentenced to 70 months in prison.
In 2023, 8 correctional officials from FCI Dublin have been charged and 4 have been sentenced for sexual abuse of prisoners. In February 2024, the California Coalition of Women Prisoners, filed a class-action lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons. Since the shutdown of FCI Dublin in April 2024, there are more than 65 former Dublin inmates who have filed lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by Bureau of Prisons staff.
â Inmates incarcerated prior to 1982 do not have an assigned register number.