FCI Dublin at a glance
FCI Dublin is closed. The Bureau of Prisons emptied the low-security women’s prison at Dublin, California in the spring of 2024 — the last people held there were transferred out on May 1, 2024, on the record of the federal court then supervising the institution — and it has held nobody since. FCI Dublin was gone from the Bureau’s institution roster by September 5, 2026 and was still absent when we queried that roster on September 18, 2026. This page carries no mailing address, no deposit instructions, no visiting hours and no telephone number, because there is nobody there to reach.
Every line below comes from a Bureau of Prisons record or a federal court order, with the date of that record. Where the Bureau has published nothing, the row says so.
| Official name | Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin (FCI Dublin) |
|---|---|
| BOP facility code | DUB |
| Status | Closed. Emptied of people in custody on May 1, 2024; absent from the Bureau’s institution roster on September 5, 2026 and again on September 18, 2026. |
| Location | Dublin, Alameda County, California |
| Security level | Low-security institution with an adjacent minimum-security camp, as the Bureau described it on its own facility page (captured June 11, 2026) and as the Inspector General recorded in 2018 |
| Held | Women (the Bureau’s facility page read “Female offenders”) |
| Bureau region | Western Region |
| Judicial district | Northern District of California |
| Population, last published | 0 (Bureau facility page, captured June 11, 2026). About 650 women were held at the institution and its satellite camp, on the district court’s finding of February 27, 2025. |
| Bureau relationship | Bureau-operated institution, deactivated in 2024 |
| Now | No Bureau decision on the property has been published. The consent decree entered February 27, 2025 requires the Bureau to notify the court’s Monitor and class counsel of any final decision on the lease, sale or reopening of the site. |
| Finding someone | Use the Bureau’s Inmate Locator |
On this page
What happened to FCI Dublin?
The Bureau closed it in the middle of a federal class action about sexual abuse of the women held there, and the closing itself became something the court had to supervise. The case is California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. United States of America Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 4:23-cv-04155-YGR, filed in the Northern District of California on August 16, 2023 before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The dates below come from that docket and from the Bureau’s own records.
- March 15, 2024. The court certified a class, granted a preliminary injunction in part and ordered the appointment of a special master (ECF 222), after evidentiary hearings in January and what it later called an “unannounced, in-person, nine-hour inspection of the facility and its satellite camp.”
- April 12, 2024. The Bureau told the court that Dublin would close, in the court’s words, “by burying it in an administrative filing on Friday, April 12, 2024.” The court records elsewhere that the announcement came four days after its Special Monitor began her observation of the institution.
- April 22 to 24, 2024. Three successive orders gave the Bureau guidance on the transfers out (ECF 264, 275 and 287).
- May 1, 2024. The last people in custody left.
- May 8, 2024. Order Re Closure of FCI Dublin and Preliminary Injunction (ECF 300). The court refused to undo its emergency orders: it “did not and could not order the BOP to abandon its decision to close the facility,” but its guidance “required the BOP to provide constitutionally adequate care and processes to FCI Dublin’s AICs.”
- May 20, 2024. Order No. 3 re Special Master and Appointment of Monitor (ECF 308).
- December 20, 2024 and February 27, 2025. Preliminary approval of a proposed consent decree (ECF 442), then final approval and final judgment (ECF 473).
- June 11, 2026. The Bureau’s own Dublin facility page was still online, showing a population of 0, visiting suspended until further notice, and no inmate mailing address at all.
- September 5 and 18, 2026. Absent from the Bureau’s institution roster on both dates; the old facility URL no longer resolves to a facility page.
What the Bureau has not published matters too. We found no Bureau document calling the closure permanent: its July 1, 2026 facility-closures release names six institutions and does not mention Dublin, and the consent decree approved in February 2025 assumes a Bureau decision on the site is still to come, requiring notice to the Monitor and class counsel of any final decision on “the lease, sale, or reopening of the FCI Dublin property.” So this page says the institution is closed, which the record supports, and nothing more than that.
Where are the people who were held at FCI Dublin?
Somewhere else in the federal system, and the only way to find one person is the Bureau’s Inmate Locator. The district court recorded that after the closure was announced the women held at Dublin “were chaotically transferred to alternative Bureau of Prisons (‘BOP’) facilities throughout the country.” There was no single receiving prison, and this page does not say where any individual went. Our guide to federal prison transfers covers how the Bureau moves people.
Three things about the Locator save a wasted search. It needs a first name and a last name; a last-name-only query fails outright rather than returning nothing. It misses hyphenated and compound surnames, so search each part, the compound, and any published register number. And it names a facility only while no release date is recorded — otherwise it shows a label and a date (for example, “Not in BOP Custody as of:”). A zero result establishes nothing.
One trap in particular. A record can name a city — Long Beach, Sacramento, Phoenix — and mean the Residential Reentry Management office that supervised a release, not a prison. Read the facility type beside the name before you conclude anything. Our guide to the federal inmate locator works through the screens.
What was FCI Dublin?
A low-security federal prison for women in Alameda County, California, with an adjacent minimum-security camp, in the Bureau’s Western Region and the Northern District of California. That is how the Bureau described it on its own facility page, captured June 11, 2026, and how the Justice Department’s Inspector General recorded it in 2018: “a low security institution and a minimum security institution in Dublin, California” (Report 18-05 at p. 3 n.8). About 650 women were held across the institution and its satellite camp, on the district court’s finding.
This page used to say Dublin was “one of only three federal prisons for women.” That was wrong, and it is still repeated across the internet. The same report states at p. 3 n.8 that “BOP’s 20 female institutions are in 16 locations throughout the country,” and at p. 45 it names twelve sites holding women that the Inspector General visited or interviewed. Our page on federal prisons for women covers the current picture.
This page also used to carry a list of well-known people said to have served time at Dublin. It has been taken down. A name goes on a facility page here only when a court or Bureau record puts the person there and a dated Inmate Locator check establishes where they are now.
What did the courts and the Inspector General find?
The district court’s own summary, in its February 27, 2025 final-approval order, is the shortest accurate statement of it: the women at Dublin and its camp “endured years of systemic sexual assault and whistleblower retaliation as perpetrated by all levels of facility staff, including the FCI Dublin warden himself,” and the allegations “led to numerous criminal convictions and hundreds of individual plaintiffs filing civil suits.”
The warden was Ray J. Garcia. A nonprecedential Federal Circuit decision records that “in September 2021, after an investigation by the agency’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, then-warden of FCI Dublin Ray Garcia was charged in a criminal complaint related to misconduct at FCI Dublin” (Meyokovich v. DOJ, No. 2024-1239 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 21, 2024), at 2). A jury convicted him on all eight counts of the superseding indictment on December 8, 2022; on March 22, 2023 the court imposed 70 months, 15 years of supervised release and $15,000 in restitution, and entered judgment on March 24. United States v. Garcia, No. 4:21-cr-00429-YGR (N.D. Cal.), ECF 111, 163 and 166. An earlier version of this page called him the warden of FCI Danbury. He was the warden of FCI Dublin.
The same decision records the Bureau’s reaction: in early 2022 the Western Regional Office and the Central Office both sent assessment teams to evaluate staff performance at Dublin, and after they identified “numerous noncompliance issues” the Western Regional Director reassigned every manager who had been at the institution six months or more.
The Inspector General never ran a facility inspection of Dublin, but Dublin is in the record. For Report 18-05, published September 18, 2018, FCI Dublin was one of seven institutions the Inspector General visited in person; the report says so at p. 45, and the fieldwork ran from July 2016 through September 2017. That was a Bureau-wide review, not an inspection of this prison.
What did the consent decree require?
Injunctive relief across eight categories for a two-year term running from the date the court approved it, February 27, 2025. The decree does not attach to the building. It attaches to the people who were in it: the court approved a class of “all people who were incarcerated at FCI Dublin between March 15, 2024 and May 1, 2024, and all named Plaintiffs,” and those women are now spread across the federal system.
The court appointed Wendy Still as Special Monitor and gave her a staff and budget, with access to Bureau facilities and to class members. On the property itself the decree is deliberately open-ended: the Bureau must notify the Monitor and class counsel following “any BOP final decision regarding the lease, sale, or reopening of the FCI Dublin property.”
The case has not gone quiet. Class counsel’s fees and expenses were approved on April 9, 2026 (ECF 545); a motion to enforce the decree was denied on May 13, 2026 (ECF 556); and a notice of appeal from a later order was filed on August 4, 2026. Anyone who was at Dublin in that window should read the decree itself, not a summary of it.
Federal prisons still operating in California
The Bureau’s roster carried fifteen California records when we queried it on September 18, 2026: ten institutions, two complex-level records for Lompoc and Victorville, two Residential Reentry Management offices and the Western Regional Office. Our California federal prisons hub lists each one with its security level and the record behind it, and flags the California facilities that are closed or suspended.
We do not recommend a facility: the Bureau designates, on its own criteria. Our explainer on major federal prison closures and deactivations collects the ones the Bureau has announced.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is FCI Dublin still open?
No. The Bureau transferred the last people held there out on May 1, 2024, and FCI Dublin was absent from the Bureau’s institution roster when we queried it on September 18, 2026. Its own facility page showed a population of zero when that page was captured on June 11, 2026.
Why did the Bureau of Prisons close FCI Dublin?
The Bureau announced the closure in April 2024, weeks after a federal judge certified a class action about sexual abuse at the prison and ordered a monitor. The judge was careful to say she could not order the Bureau to keep it open. The Bureau has published no document of its own explaining the decision.
Can I send mail or money to someone at FCI Dublin?
No. Nobody is held there, and the Bureau’s facility page listed no inmate mailing address when it was captured on June 11, 2026. Find the person on the Inmate Locator first, then follow the mail and deposit rules of the institution that actually holds them.
How do I find someone who was held at FCI Dublin?
Use the Bureau’s Inmate Locator, which needs a first and a last name, or a register number. The women at Dublin were moved to facilities around the country, so there is no shortcut. Read the facility type beside a result: a city name can mean a reentry office, not a prison.
What happened to the warden of FCI Dublin?
Ray J. Garcia was charged in September 2021, while warden, after an investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General and the FBI. A jury convicted him on all eight counts on December 8, 2022, and on March 22, 2023 the court imposed 70 months and 15 years of supervised release.
Is the FCI Dublin consent decree still in force?
The court approved it on February 27, 2025 for a two-year term running from that date, so it has not yet run out. It covers people incarcerated at Dublin between March 15 and May 1, 2024, wherever they are held now. The court was still ruling on motions under it in May 2026.
Where we can help
Talk Through a Custody Problem. You leave knowing whether this is grievable, and how long there is to act. Conditions inside are sometimes evidence, and the administrative clock runs whether or not anyone files.
Our pages on problems inside a federal prison, filing a BP-9 and compassionate release set out what each route requires and what it does not.
Call 843-620-1100 or contact us to arrange a paid one-hour consultation about a specific situation. Calls are answered 24 hours a day.
Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a federal criminal defense and post-conviction firm based in Columbia, South Carolina, practicing nationwide. Mentions of California places on this page do not imply an office or a lawyer there.
Sources and currency
Court records
- California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. United States of America Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 4:23-cv-04155-YGR (N.D. Cal., filed August 16, 2023). ECF 222 (Mar. 15, 2024); ECF 264, 275, 287 (Apr. 22 to 24, 2024); ECF 300 (May 8, 2024); ECF 308 (May 20, 2024); ECF 442 (Dec. 20, 2024); ECF 473 (Feb. 27, 2025); ECF 545 (Apr. 9, 2026); ECF 556 (May 13, 2026); ECF 569 (Aug. 4, 2026). Docket read September 18, 2026.
- United States v. Garcia, No. 4:21-cr-00429-YGR (N.D. Cal.). Jury verdict, ECF 111 (Dec. 8, 2022); sentencing, ECF 163 (Mar. 22, 2023); judgment, ECF 166 (Mar. 24, 2023). Read September 18, 2026.
- Meyokovich v. DOJ, No. 2024-1239 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 21, 2024) (nonprecedential, per curiam), at pp. 2 to 3. Read September 18, 2026.
Bureau and Inspector General records
- Our Locations, Federal Bureau of Prisons. Institution roster queried September 18, 2026: 165 records, none of them FCI Dublin, and fifteen California records. Dublin was already absent on September 5, 2026.
- FCI Dublin, Bureau of Prisons facility page, captured June 11, 2026 from bop.gov. Security level, region, judicial district, county, “Female offenders,” a population of 0, visiting suspended and no inmate mailing address. The URL no longer resolves to a facility page.
- Federal Bureau of Prisons Announces Facility Closures and Operational Changes, July 1, 2026. Names six institutions; does not mention Dublin.
- Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Its Female Inmate Population, Report 18-05, DOJ Office of the Inspector General, September 18, 2018. Dublin and the count of female institutions at p. 3 n.8; the site visits at p. 45. PDF read September 18, 2026.
- Find an inmate, Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Sources reviewed September 2026. If the Bureau publishes a decision on the Dublin property, this page will be updated to say so.
Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026