Description
Central California Women's Facility is one of just two women’s penitentiaries in the state and is one of the largest women’s prisons in the world, with a population of more than 2,000 women, nonbinary and trans people held inside.
Interviews with more than a dozen women, a KQED analysis of six years’ worth of sexual assault complaints, trial transcripts, court filings, leaked internal affairs interviews and hundreds of disciplinary documents revealed a pattern of retaliation against incarcerated women who reported assault, failure to investigate those assaults and the dysfunctional accountability system that allowed staff sexual exploitation of women to flourish.
A recent U.S. Department of Justice investigation reached a similar conclusion, finding an “unbroken pattern” of sexual abuse and retaliation in California’s women’s prisons dating back more than two decades.
One former correctional officer, Gregory Rodriguez, was convicted on 64 counts of sexual abuse, including rape and sexual battery. He was sentenced to 224 years in prison.
B-Segment host Brian Watt interviews KQED's Madi Bolaños about her two-year investigation with Snap Judgement's Anna Sussman. They reported a series called "We Are Jane Doe."
Read more:
https://www.kqed.org/news/12104812/put-them-down-with-gas-kqed-investigation-finds-abuse-and-retaliation-at-chowchilla-prison
https://www.kqed.org/news/12100922/warden-of-californias-largest-womens-prison-reassigned-amid-scrutiny-over-sexual-abuse
https://www.kqed.org/news/12095240/us-doj-finds-unbroken-pattern-of-sexual-abuse-by-california-prison-staff
https://www.kqed.org/news/12079668/i-thought-i-was-going-to-die-video-shows-mass-force-at-california-womens-prison
https://snapjudgment.org/we-are-jane-doe/
✏️ VIDEO CHAPTERS ✏️
00:00 Introduction
2:28 How did you learn about a mass use of force inside a women’s prison?
3:58 Who stepped forward to testify against Gregory Rodriguez for sexual assault?
5:10 How were incarcerated women able get the word out about the abuse?
8:20 Who was held accountable for the abuse at Chowchilla Prison?
11:24 What happened to the women who filed sexual assault claims against corrections officers?
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