WASHINGTON — The Bureau of Prisons has rejected the early release of a female inmate who said she had been sexually abused by male employees at a notorious California penitentiary, reflecting a broader struggle by the Justice Department to free inmates abused in federal custody, when appropriate.
In late January, the general counsel of the prison bureau denied an application filed by Aimee Chavira, 43, who claimed her experience at the Federal Correctional Institution Dublin, near Oakland, Calif., made her eligible for immediate release on humanitarian grounds. She is among a number of women who have detailed pervasive misconduct during their incarceration at Dublin, and five former employees, including the warden, have been charged with sexual abuse.
Ms. Chavira’s case — the first of its kind to make its way through the system — is seen by prisoners’ rights groups as a key test of the department’s commitment to use so-called compassionate release protocols for victims of abuse.
But doing so represents a shock to an institution more focused on locking up inmates than letting them go. Prison officials, and judges — who are the ultimate arbiters — have been reluctant to support early release unless an inmate is ill, dying or incapacitated by age, and more than four-fifths of compassionate release requests are rejected in court.
The department’s senior leaders fear provoking a backlash that will undermine the policy shift, and have moved slowly to incorporate a departmental system to investigate abuse claims on applications — so that judges will not have to conduct unpredictable mini trials to determine the veracity of those accusations, according to people familiar with the situation.
James B. Wills, the bureau’s counsel, acknowledged that Ms. Chavira’s assertions of being groped and forced to disrobe by male staff members were “extremely concerning,” but described her documentation of those claims as insufficient.
Privately, officials familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, do not dispute her allegations. They believe that Ms. Chavira, who was convicted on a drug charge and is currently being held at a federal prison in Arizona, does not pose a public safety threat if freed. She is scheduled to be released in 2026.
They characterized the rejection as temporary, although they did not say what factors would lead to an approval or offer a timetable for instituting the new system of internal reviews. Dublin is a particular point of focus for the Justice Department, which is investigating a culture of abuse there.
“There are some cases they should be agreeing to immediately, if this policy is really about justice at all,” said Erica Zunkel, Ms. Chavira’s lawyer, who represents clients through a law clinic at the University of Chicago, where she is a professor.
“The department’s leadership had promised they would reconsider the policy, so this was an important decision that sends a big signal,” she added.
The allegations of widespread sexual abuse at Dublin have increased pressure on the bureau, which is responsible for about 160,000 inmates around the country.
Last year, Lisa O. Monaco, the deputy attorney general, instructed Bureau of Prisons officials to prioritize applications from victims of sexual misconduct, the first time the department had formally made such a request. Colette S. Peters, a former Oregon state prison official tapped to lead the bureau in July, has backed the initiative.
In November, a working group convened by Ms. Monaco made a series of recommendations, including expansion of early release programs “to better protect the safety and well-being of those in B.O.P. custody and better hold accountable those who abuse positions of trust.”
But taking this relatively modest step has proved more difficult than anticipated.
The path to early release is a complex tangle of laws and regulations intended to prevent violent criminals and repeat offenders from taking advantage of the system by falsely claiming maladies or hardships.
Under current rules, the Bureau of Prisons initiates the process of requesting a compassionate release, filing a formal motion with the judge who presided over the original trial.
Rank-and-file prosecutors and prison officials play a vital role — their support, or ambivalence, about an application can often be the deciding factor — and many have been resistant to free anyone, even an inmate in the final stages of a terminal illness.
Department officials are still exploring ways to fortify and repurpose internal administrative procedures to help verify the hundreds of sexual abuse claims filed by prisoners each year, according to a draft letter of a proposal to a judicial policy panel outlining possible changes.
Without reliable internal investigations, sentencing judges are more likely to reject compassionate release requests after conducting their own fact-gathering efforts, department officials say, unless a prison official is criminally charged with abusing a particular inmate.
In his letter, Mr. Wills encouraged Ms. Chavira to submit a new request “upon receipt of a final adjudication of her allegations,” without offering further explanation.
That was an apparent reference to an open federal criminal investigation into a male employee who is believed to have abused Ms. Chavira and other inmates, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In the meantime, the delays are taking their toll. Thus far, only a handful of the women at Dublin have applied for compassionate release, but many others are waiting to see the outcome of the requests from Ms. Chavira and others before taking action.
“B.O.P. releases — or should release — people who have a diagnosis of impending death, and they take an expert’s word on it,” said Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a prisoners’ rights group in Washington.
“If B.O.P. believes a woman, after talking to her, has been sexually abused, why is that not the same thing?” he added. “Why make the standard so high for someone who risks so much retaliation and hardship in making a complaint to begin with?”
Ms. Peters has said that addressing prisoner abuse, along with the overreliance on restrictive housing units, are among her top priorities. Last week, she ordered the closing of a troubled special detention unit in Illinois where inmate deaths, suicides and reports of sexual harassment by guards have been rampant.
For the past year, several working groups in the Justice Department have sought to determine how to fix a system long plagued by health and safety problems, corruption, staff turnover and physical and sexual abuse that has disproportionately targeted female inmates and prison workers.
Ms. Monaco has pushed federal prosecutors to crack down on sexual abuse at federal facilities, even though proving such crimes is often time-consuming and difficult.
The department is also taking other steps. Ms. Monaco’s aides support a proposal before the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency that creates guidelines for federal judges, to carry out a law that gives inmates and their lawyers the right to directly petition courts for compassionate release without having to go through the Bureau of Prisons.
The commission is expected to hold public hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss a range of potential changes, including to the compassionate release rules.
