![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SBS-L-PRISONSUITS-0806-01.jpg\")
An aerial view of California Institution for Women in Chino. (Courtesy of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)<\/p>\nThe U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday, March 26, it has launched a federal investigation into whether two California women\u2019s prisons are unconstitutionally housing and providing preferential treatment to biologically male prisoners.<\/p>\n
The investigation centers on the constitutional rights of female prisoners housed at the California Institution for Woman in Chino and Central California Women\u2019s Facility in Madera County, which have a maximum capacity of 1,400 and 1,990 prisoners, respectively.<\/p>\n
A letter of legal notice was sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday informing him of the investigation, according to a Justice Department news release.<\/p>\n
An aerial view of California Institution for Women in Chino. (Courtesy of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)<\/p>\n
\u201cSpecifically, the Department will investigate widely reported allegations of deprivation of female prisoners\u2019 rights, including freedom of speech under the First Amendment, freedom to exercise religion under the First Amendment, and equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment,\u201d said Harmeet K. Dhillon, the DOJ\u2019s assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, in her letter to the governor.<\/p>\n
Since California\u2019s Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act<\/a> took effect in January 2021, men in state prisons \u2014 including violent felons charged with sex crimes and who have intact genitals \u2014 can request transfer to women\u2019s prisons based on self-identification as transgender. Since then, according to the news release, allegations of sexual assaults, attempted rapes, voyeurism and a \u201cpervasive climate of sexual intimidation\u201d have pervaded the women\u2019s prisons due to the presence of male prisoners.<\/p>\n \u201cThese investigations will uncover whether the dangerous national trend of housing men in women\u2019s prisons has resulted in violations of women\u2019s constitutional rights,\u201d Dhillon said in a statement.<\/p>\n The governor\u2019s press office deferred comment to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which operates and oversees California\u2019s 31 prisons.<\/p>\n Terri Hardy, spokesperson for the agency, said in a statement Thursday that \u201cany suggestion that all transgender women be assigned to men\u2019s institutions as a matter of policy is a suggestion to violate federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCDCR is committed to providing a safe, humane, respectful and rehabilitative environment for all incarcerated people, enforcing a zero-tolerance policy as mandated by the federal legal requirements known as the Prison Rape Elimination Act,\u201d Hardy said.<\/p>\n The authority for the federal investigation, according to the Justice Department, falls under two federal statutes: the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act<\/a>, or CRIPA, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act<\/a>, or RLUIPA.<\/p>\n CRIPA allows the federal government to investigate and fix systemic abuse or civil rights violations in state-run prisons, jails, and care facilities, protecting people who are institutionalized from mistreatment, while RLUIPA protects people in prisons and similar facilities, making sure they can follow their religious beliefs without unfair restrictions.<\/p>\n \u201cCalifornia\u2019s Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act has provided none of these qualities to the female inmates of state prisons who have been forced to share space with biological men who are violent felons,\u201d said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. \u201cOur Constitution protects woman from having their civil rights violated by harmful state legislation wrapped in the language of \u2018equity\u2019 and \u2018progress.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, signed into law by Newsom in September 2020,requires prisons to ask inmates privately about their gender identity, pronouns and preferred titles, use them correctly, and house and search transgender, nonbinary or intersex people according to their choices.<\/p>\n Donald Specter, a senior staff attorney at the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office and its former executive director, called the Justice Department\u2019s investigation \u201cabsurd.\u201d In a telephone interview Thursday, Specter said the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act was designed, in part, to protect transgender women from being sexually assaulted in men\u2019s prisons by, among other things, housing them in women\u2019s prisons.<\/p>\n He disputes the government\u2019s argument that transgender women pose the same threat to women in women\u2019s prisons.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s farfetched for the government to turn this into a constitutional violation for women prisoners,\u201d Specter said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe anything the Trump administration says until I see it proven. I really doubt they have the evidence to back up what they\u2019re saying.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday, March 26, it has launched a federal investigation into whether…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,29789,107576,10437,138,610,137,100,612,5518,136],"class_list":["post-238825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-chino","tag-chino-valley","tag-corona","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-inland-empire","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-news","tag-riverside-county","tag-san-bernardino-county","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}