Congress members ask for more info on 'botched' FCI Dublin closure
Powerless in Prison: The fallout of FCI Dublin
In April, the Bureau of Prisons abruptly shut down the troubled FCI Dublin. KTVU interviews dozens of women and explains what led up to the closure, questioning whether this was retaliation for outside oversight over the prison, which has been riddled with sex abuse for decades.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - More than 20 members of the United States Congress on Thursday wrote a letter to the Bureau of Prisons sharing concerns about what they are calling a "botched" closure of FCI Dublin and asking whether a judge's appointment of a special master over the all-women's prison had anything to do with it.
The Congress members asked for more information in relation to the April closure, particularly when it comes to concerns about mistreatment of incarcerated women who were being transferred to other facilities.
In an interview, Rep. Mark DeSaulnier said, "we want to get answers and see that this investigation holds them accountable… We will pursue this relentlessly."
The closure came less than two weeks after U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers named a special master to oversee that reforms were made at FCI Dublin, which she had called a "dysfunctional mess."
The Congress members said they are looking for more answers in regard to the decision to close the facility, which has also been a place of rampant sexual abuse. Since 2022, seven correctional officers have been sentenced to prison for sexual crimes against incarcerated women.
After the prison closed, other abuses surfaced, the Congressional letter noted.
Some of those abuses include lack of medical care and the inhumane treatment of women who are now at other prisons across the United States, the letter states. KTVU was the first to report many of these abuses.
"This level of disrespect for human dignity cannot be tolerated," the Congress members wrote directly to BOP Director Colette Peters.
Peters disputes that the closure went poorly.
KTVU obtained a memo that Peters wrote where she commended her staff for the shut-down.
Last month, some of these same members of Congress sent a letter to the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees asking them to investigate and hold hearings on the abuse reported at FCI Dublin.
So far, such a hearing has not taken place.
Congress members ask for more info on 'botched' FCI Dublin closure
More than 20 members of the United States Congress on Thursday wrote a letter to the Bureau of Prisons sharing concerns about what they are calling a "botched" closure of FCI Dublin and asking whether a judge's appointment of a special master over the all-women's prison had anything to do with it.
The members of Congress who signed the letter include:
- Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10)
- Senator Laphonza Butler (D-CA)
- Chair of Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Senator Peter Welch (D-VT)
- Representative Cori Bush (MO-01)
- Representative Judy Chu (CA-28),
- Representative Anna Eshoo (CA-16)
- Representative John Garamendi (CA-08)
- Representative Jared Huffman (CA-02)
- Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18)
- Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove (CA-37)
- Representative Barbara Lee (CA-12)
- Representative Ted Lieu (CA-36)
- Representative Zoe Lofgren (CA-18)
- Representative Doris Matsui (CA-07)
- Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL)
- Representative Ayanna Pressley (MA-07)
- Representative Adam Schiff (CA-30)
- Representative Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (VA-03)
- Representative Melanie Stansbury (NM-01)
- Representative Eric Swalwell (CA-14)
To read the full letter, including the detailed questions the members of Congress want answered, see below: