DOJ Investigates Sexual Abuse of Women at California Prisons

On September 4, 2024, the DOJ Civil Rights Division announced that it has opened a civil rights investigation into two California women’s prisons. DOJ’s announcement can be found here. The civil rights investigations are centered around allegations of sexual abuse of female detainees at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino. Notably, the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla is the largest female prison in California. Per Courthouse News Service, multiple lawsuits have been filed by detained and formerly detained women at the two prisons alleging “forcible rape, groping and threats of violence and punishment by the men put in charge of them.” According to the DOJ, “[t]he correctional officers named in these allegations range in rank and have included the very people responsible for handling complaints of sexual abuse made by women incarcerated at these facilities.”