Women at Dublin California prison dubbed the ‘rape club’ now worry where they’ll be transferred

Prison officials announced plans to transfer people out of the women’s federal prison at Dublin following a sex abuse scandal and years of other problems. (Ben Margot / Associated Press)

by Keri Blakinger and Richard Winton
April 16, 2024

The sun was barely up at the Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, but the prisoners knew there was something afoot.

The inmate workers still hadn’t left for their jobs that morning, and there were extra guards at the troubled federal facility in Northern California.

“We could tell these were not new officers,” Rhonda Fleming, a woman imprisoned at Dublin, told The Times in an email. “We knew they came from the men’s prison.”

But the women could only guess what was happening — and it made them tense.

After years of controversy, lawsuits and sexual abuse scandals, on Monday the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced plans to close the facility. But instead of bringing relief, for many prisoners the news sparked fear and confusion as the women worried about being moved far away from their families.

The facility in Dublin had been garnering headlines for years, and usually for nothing good. Inmates and their advocates cited problems with medical care, mold and overcrowding. But the prison was most notorious for a sex abuse scandal that earned it a reputation as the “rape club.”

After the FBI started making arrests in 2021, eight FCI Dublin employees — including a former warden — were charged with sexually abusing inmates. Several women sued the prison, and this year a federal judge appointed a special master to oversee the facility. Last month, federal authorities raided the facility, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons removed several of the top managers.