A women’s prison in California so plagued by sexual abuse that it was known among inmates and workers as the“rape club” will be closed, the head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced Monday

Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters said that the agency is closing the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, where more than a half dozen correctional officers and the former warden have either been charged or convicted of sexually abusing the female inmates.

Peters stated that the bureau had “taken unprecedented steps and provided a tremendous amount of resources to address culture, recruitment and retention, aging infrastructure — and most critical — employee misconduct.”

“Despite these steps and resources, we have determined that FCI Dublin is not meeting expected standards and that the best course of action is to close the facility. This decision is being made after ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of those unprecedented steps and additional resources.”

She said, “planning for deactivation is currently ongoing” for the prison that houses 605 inmates. The facility east of Oakland is one of a handful of federal women’s prisons in the Western states.

“It is a remarkable admission,” said attorney Michael Bien, whose law firm represents inmates in a class-action lawsuit over conditions at the prisons. Prison authorities are “saying they can’t operate this prison safely.” He said closure doesn’t address the underlying issue. “How does this solve the problems? The same policy and procedures are in place at other prisons. It is not the building that did anything wrong.”

Bien said attorneys representing Dublin inmates had not been informed of the closure announcement. He added that a federal judge had just been appointed a special master for the prison in connection with the class-action lawsuit and that same judge had ordered that anyone involved in the proceedings cannot be transferred from Dublin without her authorization.

The women housed at Dublin will be transferred to other facilities as near as possible to their release location and no employees will lose their jobs due to the closure, according to Peters. The long-term fate of the federal facility is unclear. “The closure of the facility may be temporary but result in a mission change,” she said. Inmates of the prison have included actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman after their convictions in the college admissions scandal.

The developments are the latest twist in a years-long scandal surrounding the facility. Since an FBI investigation was launched and resulted in arrests in 2021, eight FCI Dublin employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. Five have pleaded guilty, and two have been convicted by juries. Another employee is slated to go on trial this year.

The announcement comes after the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the prison last month and Warden Art Dulgov — just a few months into his tenure — and three other top managers were removed from their positions by the federal Bureau of Prisons.

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