Overview
- The Justice Department, which announced the probes Thursday, opened investigations into the California Institution for Women, the Central California Women’s Facility, and Maine’s Correctional Center, and said it has not reached conclusions.
- Investigators will examine whether officials engaged in a pattern or practice of violating inmates’ rights under the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments based on reports of sexual assault, rape, voyeurism, and intimidation.
- In California, prosecutors charged inmate Tremaine Carroll with raping multiple women at the Central California Women’s Facility, including a case tied to a reported pregnancy, while in Maine several inmates accused Andrea (Andrew) Balcer of harassment and assault.
- Maine’s governor’s office called the action politically motivated, while California prison officials said placing all transgender women in men’s prisons would violate the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.
- The review follows California’s 2021 SB 132, which lets inmates request transfers by gender identity, a process with 1,028 requests but only 47 approvals as of March 4, and it is part of a new DOJ single-sex prisons initiative that could lead to negotiated remedies or litigation.