OAKLAND – For months, sometimes years, female inmates at Dublin Federal Prison remained silent while they were sexually abused by their guards.
Who could they tell when the warden himself, who was accountable for investigating abuse cases within the prison, sexually abused three of them? Who would consider that the prison chaplain they’d sought out for spiritual guidance was quoting Biblical parables to coerce and manipulate them into sex? How could they reveal it when their tormentors had the ability to make life in a jail cell much more unbearable?
“All of us who were victims were completely helpless once we were inside,” said Darlene Baker, whose attacker has still not been charged.
On Saturday, greater than two dozen former inmates who were victimized in the course of the all-women's prison's “rape club” culture gathered at an Oakland church to inform their harrowing stories of abuse and explain how they finally mustered the courage to come back forward. Their brave actions over the past two years — and the efforts of lawyers, relatives and members of Congress who took up their cause — led to criminal convictions of the warden, chaplain and 6 other prison guards, a class-action lawsuit and, ultimately, the prison's abrupt closure in April. Twenty-nine other prison employees are on paid administrative leave while the investigation continues. A special prosecutor found that so many prison guards were furloughed that the power could only operate with half its staff on the time of its closure. A federal judge called the prison a “dysfunctional mess.”
Saturday's gathering, sponsored by the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition, whose members filed the class-action lawsuit, featured former inmates who traveled from as distant as Seattle and Arizona to attend the emotional reunion, starting early within the day with a non-public healing circle.
“Coming together in a group of other women who have been through the same thing I have brings us closer together,” said former inmate Windy Panzo. “It allows us to share this pain and empower each other.”
By Saturday evening, no less than 4 of them were able to tell their stories publicly – and provides their names.
“My name is Windy and I was raped by the chaplain,” she told the greater than 100 people crowded right into a conference room on the First Unitarian Church in downtown Oakland, including relatives of the victims and other advocates.
She was serving a 25-year prison sentence for drug offenses and was “emotionally devastated. I was mentally devastated. I was physically devastated.”
She turned to Chaplain James Highhouse in the hunt for hope and was as a substitute “raped multiple times.”
She found her breath caught as she described her name being called over the prison's PA system to fulfill the chaplain. “He did everything he could to get me to go to the chapel,” she said. “And I had to go. You couldn't say no. You couldn't walk away.”
When she asked for a transfer and told her prison counselor in regards to the abuse, he turned her down: “I'm retiring,” Panzo recalls the counselor saying. “I don't want to hear that.”
“Who do you tell when the director, the chaplain, the guards, the kitchen staff, all are dirty,” said Panzo, “and if they are not directly dirty, do they hide it from everyone else?”
As other victims got here forward with stories of rampant abuse by the hands of prison guards, Panzo finally spoke out about her own. She testified against Highhouse, who’s now serving a seven-year sentence for sexual abuse. During the sentencing, the judge noted Highhouse's “persistent predatory behavior toward traumatized and defenseless women in prison.” Panzo also found the strength to testify before a congressional committee on a video call.
Former prison warden Ray J. Garcia was sentenced to just about 6 years in prison in 2023 for sexually abusing three inmates. Garcia, who was promoted from deputy prison warden to the highest management position within the midst of the abuse case, had boasted to his victims that he could “never be fired.” The chaplain and the prison warden were two of eight correctional officers charged. Seven were convicted.
No charges have been filed against the doctor who, based on Darlene Baker, locked the door to the doctor's office and sexually assaulted her, she said.
“He pushed me into the back of the hospital room and sexually assaulted me. And I said, 'No.' I said, 'Stop,'” Baker told the group. “And then I realized very quickly that I was completely helpless, completely helpless.”
She told a jail psychologist, who said, “We don't have any mental health services.” If she was suicidal, he told her, she could go into solitary confinement. “And that was the end of my conversation with him.”
When her abuser came upon she had complained, he retaliated by withholding her prescription medication for 2 months.
Baker's family contacted then-U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier of San Mateo, who helped bring the scandal to light.
The California Coalition for Women Prisoners, a part of the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition, filed a class-action lawsuit in August 2023 demanding fundamental reforms on the prison and systemic changes on the federal bureau of prisons. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers appointed a special counsel, Wendy Stills, to oversee reforms there. Stills and her team had been on site for little greater than every week last April when bureau of prison officials announced the approaching closure — a move inmates said was a brazen try to cover up the scandal and obstruct investigations. The special counsel immediately turned her attention to the chaotic transfer of 603 inmates to other federal prisons for ladies across the country — most on the East Coast. In her report last month, which called conditions there “unacceptable,” Stills described how she prevented numerous buses from leaving on the primary day. Some inmates were left in a parked bus for 4 hours while she ensured that transfers were properly tracked and that anyone near release was held back. Several inmates, including victims of sexual abuse, were released on humanitarian grounds.
After the closure, the Bureau of Prisons filed a motion to dismiss the category motion lawsuit, arguing that the prison was closed and the problems raised within the lawsuit were moot. Last week, Judge Gonzales Rogers dismissed the lawsuit. A trial is scheduled for next yr.
The women who gathered Saturday are still waiting for justice for the opposite correctional officers who remain on paid leave and plan to proceed to advocate for prison reform.
“It's very healing to be able to share our stories with each other. But it also gives us strength, doesn't it? It gives us a voice,” said Kendra Drysdale, whose abuser has not been charged. “Our goal is to give a voice to those who are still there, still in prison, so we can stop any abuse and try to make a change.”
Originally published:
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