U.S. female prisoners suffer sexual abuse: AP

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Prisoners at a federal women's prison in Dublin, California, said they have been subjected to "rampant sexual abuse" by correctional officers and even the warden, reported the Associated Press (AP).

Inmates "were often threatened or punished when they tried to speak up," the AP reported on Sunday. And prisoners and workers at the federal correctional institution named the jail "The rape club."

The AP said it found a "permissive and toxic culture" at the prisons, enabling years of "sexual misconduct" by employees and cover-ups that have largely kept the abuse out of the public eye.

"The allegations at Dublin, which so far have resulted in four arrests, are endemic of a larger problem within the beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons," said the report.

In 2020, there were 422 complaints of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse across 122 prisons, while four of them were substantiated and 290 are still under investigation, it said.