The federal Bureau of Prisons is closing its "rape club" women's prison in California and will idle six facilities in a sweeping realignment after years of abuse, decay and mismanagement, the Associated Press reports. The agency told employees and Congress on Thursday that it plans to shutter the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Calif., deactivate minimum-security prison camps in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. Staff and inmates are being moved to other facilities. The bureau said it was taking “decisive and strategic action” to address “significant challenges, including a critical staffing shortage, crumbling infrastructure and limited budgetary resources.” The agency said it is committed to finding positions for every affected employee.
After repeatedly promising to reform Dublin and other troubled facilities, Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters is moving to closures and consolidation, citing inadequate staffing and staggering costs to repair aging infrastructure. The permanent shutdown of Dublin seven months after a temporary closure after staff-on-inmate abuse that led to the “rape club” nickname is a clear sign that the agency — with 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates and an annual budget of $8 billion — is unable or unwilling to rehabilitate its most problematic institutions. Three years ago, the agency closed its troubled jail in Manhattan when myriad problems came to light after Jeffrey Epstein's suicide, including lax security, staffing shortages and unsafe conditions such as falling concrete and busted cells. The agency has plans to build a $500 million medium-security prison facility and minimum-security camp for about 1,400 inmates in Roxana, Ky., citing a need for “modern facilities and infrastructure.”
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