The Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin (FCI Dublin) is a low-security United States federal prison for female inmates in Dublin, California. The facility also has an adjacent satellite prison camp housing minimum-security female offenders. FCI Dublin is located 20 miles southeast of

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

on the

Parks Reserve Forces Training Area Parks Reserve Forces Training Area (PRFTA), commonly known as Camp Parks, is a United States Army base located in Dublin, California, that is currently an active military and training center for U.S. Army Reserve personnel to be used in case o ...

. It is located near

Santa Rita Jail Santa Rita Jail is a county jail located in Dublin, Alameda County, California, and operated by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. With a design capacity of 3489, Santa Rita is one of the largest prisons in the United States and larger than m ...

, which is operated by

Alameda County Alameda County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. Alam ...

. 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.

History

FCI Dublin opened in 1974. It became an exclusively female prison in 2012 and is one of five federal prisons for women in the United States.

Facility and programs

The prison's education department offers

GED The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has United States or Canadian high school-level academic skills. It is an alternative to the US high ...

and

ESL English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages. Language education for people learning English may be known as English as a second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EFL ...

programs, as well as courses in parenting skills. The prison also provides legal and leisure library services in addition to training in the use of various computer

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

. There are two Federal Prison Industries UNICOR programs at FCI Dublin: the Textiles and the

Call Center A call centre ( Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American spelling; see spelling differences) is a managed capability that can be centralised or remote that is used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of enquiries by telephone. ...

. Textiles employ approximately 150 inmates on the manufacture of custom draperies,

parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...

s, and disaster blankets. They also sort and repair

USPS The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the ...

mailbags. The Call Center employs around 250 inmates on directory assistance inquiries. It houses inmates who are serving an average sentence of 5 years. It has a design capacity of 250 inmates, but houses 1,077 as of April 11, 2013. Conditions are cramped, with three inmates sharing a

cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...

on the top tier and four inmates sharing a cell on the bottom tier, designed to house a single prisoner. Meals are served in shifts due to the small size of the dining facilities. Like most American prisons, FCI Dublin also contains a SHU (Security Housing Unit), where any prisoners who are deemed to have broken prison rules are kept in segregation under a highly restrictive regime. Prisoners in the SHU spend more time locked in their cell than the general prison population, are only allowed out for limited amounts of time and must be transported to and from their cell wearing

handcuffs Handcuffs are Physical restraint, restraint devices designed to secure an individual's wrists in proximity to each other. They comprise two parts, linked together by a Link chain, chain, a hinge, or rigid bar. Each cuff has a rotating arm whi ...

. Depending on the circumstances, an inmate may spend weeks or even months in the SHU. FCI Dublin is surrounded by two separate fences with a gap of approximately between them. Measuring high, each

chain-link fence A chain-link fence (also referred to as wire netting, wire-mesh fence, chain-wire fence, cyclone fence, hurricane fence, or diamond-mesh fence) is a type of woven fence usually made from galvanized or linear low-density polyethylene-coated st ...

is reinforced with multiple coils of

razor wire Barbed tape or razor wire is a mesh of metal strips with sharp edges whose purpose is to prevent passage by humans. The term "razor wire", through long usage, has generally been used to describe barbed tape products. Razor wire is much sharper th ...

(at the top and bottom) plus electronic sensors to detect escape attempts. The institution also has 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 was several old army barracks and these have been torn down. The BOP has removed a section of the FCI and placed approximately 200 female minimum security prisoners in this space. This facility is just short of a FCI. All the guards are rotated out of the FCI.

Notable incidents

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 Bank robbery is the criminal act of stealing from a bank, specifically while bank employees and customers are subjected to force, violence, or a threat of violence. This refers to robbery of a bank branch or teller, as opposed to other bank- ...

. Mr. McIntosh was serving a sentence for

wire fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to fraud, defraud another, and are Federal crime in the United States, federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the ...

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.

Sexual abuse of prisoners

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 prisoner were allegedly "threatened or punished when they tried to speak up". In 2022, the prison chaplain signed a plea agreement and was scheduled to plead guilty to sexually abusing one inmate, and former warden Ray J. Garcia was found guilty of sexual offenses against prisoners.

Notable inmates

†Inmates incarcerated prior to 1982 do not have an assigned register number.

References

External links

FCI Dublin - Official BOP Website
{{Coord, 37, 43, 06, N, 121, 53, 50, W, type:landmark_scale:5000_region:US-CA, display=title Buildings and structures in Alameda County, California Dublin, California

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

1974 establishments in California