{"id":65258,"date":"2026-08-14T06:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T06:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/65258\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T06:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T06:03:13","slug":"california-prisons-fail-to-protect-women-from-sexual-abuse-doj-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/65258\/","title":{"rendered":"California prisons fail to protect women from sexual abuse, DOJ says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles (AP) \u2014 California<\/a> \u2018s 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\u2019s corrections department failed to provide victims with a way to report sexual abuse and harassment<\/a> 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<\/a>, 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<\/a>. <\/p>\n

State says it\u2019s making improvements. Advocates say it\u2019s not enough.<\/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\u2019s 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 don\u2019t have resources to report assaults, Justice Department says<\/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\u2019s 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<\/a> 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Justice Department sets a deadline to address problems<\/p>\n

The federal government on Thursday gave California\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

The measures include expanded camera coverage, enhanced confidential reporting channels and strengthened investigative protocols.<\/p>\n

The corrections department was implementing many of those changes before the federal investigation, Matthews said.<\/p>\n

But Wonder, whose organization has participated in a state-funded working group with the corrections department since 2023, said that advocates \u201chaven\u2019t seen any meaningful changes\u201d despite regular meetings and pressure from the public. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been really frustrated, feeling like we\u2019re spinning our wheels,\u201d Wonder said.<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli<\/a>, appointed by President Donald Trump as the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said California has to take action. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe State must confront the persistent failure of its own employees to prevent and address sexual abuse at these facilities,\u201d Essayli said in a statement, \u201cand the systemic breakdowns that have permitted these conditions to persist.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles (AP) \u2014 California \u2018s prison system has systematically failed to protect incarcerated women from sexual abuse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[11832,55,434,3727,38,34048,50,34047,8,62,9,1577,1281,1282,7,54,34046],"class_list":["post-65258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-bill-essayli","tag-california","tag-crime","tag-criminal-punishment","tag-donald-trump","tag-emily-wonder","tag-general-news","tag-harmeet-k-dhillon","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-news","tag-prisons","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-sexual-assault","tag-top-stories","tag-u-s-news","tag-will-matthews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/117092352342064398","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}