What happened to you at the California Institution for Women was not okay. Not then, not now.

Chino-Corona Road, since 1952. That's how long CIW has been holding women for the State. And on August 13, 2026 the U.S. Department of Justice, two years into looking at the place, put it in a findings letter: California is violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the women held there, because staff sexual misconduct went on for years and the department running the prison knew about it. Not a law firm saying so. A federal agency. More than 130 women are already suing the State in Sacramento over CIW and Chowchilla. If you were in custody at CIW, or someone you love was, this is about you.

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This applies to you no matter what

You reported it and were the one who got punished. That is in the federal findings, in so many words: women who reported were searched more, watched more, moved. Retaliation is part of the record now, not a thing you have to prove people would believe.
It wasn't an officer. A cook, a nurse, a mental-health counselor, a sergeant, the prison gynecologist. The Justice Department's list of sustained cases at CIW has every one of those job titles on it.
It was 'consensual'. Inside a prison there is no such thing, under California law or federal law, and CDCR's own rules say the same. The power was all on one side.
You were paroled, or you're still inside. Both. Women in custody are among the plaintiffs in the cases already filed.
You never filed a grievance, or you did and it came back unsubstantiated. The DOJ found investigators sitting on cases for months, not processing evidence, not even interviewing the accused officer. An 'unsubstantiated' stamp from that system is not the last word.
It was a long time ago. For anything after about September 2016 the clock is still running today. Before that, it comes down to when you understood what it did to you, and that is a conversation with a lawyer, not a form.

What the record says about CIW: the federal findings, the lawsuits, the officers

None of this is ours. It comes from a U.S. Department of Justice findings report, court dockets, a state news release, and reporters who read the personnel files, and we link every line. Where a case is still pending we say 'alleges', because that is what it is. CDCR has not admitted liability in any of the pending civil cases.

2017 to 2019

Three CIW correctional officers were fired over incidents in May and October 2017. Two of them, Tony Garcia and Stephen Merrill, pleaded no contest to felony charges; the San Bernardino County District Attorney dropped the charges against the third, Robert Darrow, in March 2019. KQED read the personnel records and court files. KQED, November 14, 2019.

November 2021 and June 2022

The State paid $450,000 to one former CIW prisoner in two settlements: $200,000 in November 2021 over four officers, and $250,000 in June 2022 over a fifth. Her suits alleged forced sexual contact and retaliation, including that she was put in solitary while the officer she named stayed on paid leave. The State admitted nothing in settling. Prison Legal News, November 15, 2024.

September 27, 2023

A New York firm announced suits in Sacramento County Superior Court on behalf of roughly 250 women held in federal and California prisons, coordinated as JCCP No. 5276, including 20 who had been incarcerated at CIW. Slater Slater Schulman, press release.

January 18, 2024

Jane Roe et al. v. State of California and CDCR, Sacramento County Superior Court case 23CV013894, was announced: more than 130 women, all Jane Roes, from CIW and CCWF. The complaint alleges that hiring, training and supervision failures let officers get to women alone, and it describes one CIW guard responsible for more than 40 separate incidents. ACTS Law, complaint summary.

September 4, 2024

The Justice Department opened a civil-rights investigation into CIW and CCWF under CRIPA. What prompted it, per the announcement: a civil suit for 21 women at CIW over conduct from 2014 to 2020, and reports of staff sexually abusing women that had not let up since at least 2016. U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California.

February 2, 2025

The gynecologist case. California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. Scott Lee (U.S. District Court, Central District of California, 5:25-cv-00283) was brought by six Jane Does and the Coalition, who allege that Lee, CIW's only gynecologist, did abusive and unnecessary exams from 2016 into 2024 and that CDCR officials knew it. The court let the core claims go forward on January 13, 2026. Its order recites what the defendants had on Lee going back to 2016: a 2017 lawsuit, and a 2022 report to the Medical Board about a pregnant prisoner, among other complaints. Order of January 13, 2026.

August 13, 2026

The Justice Department's findings. This is the one that changed things, and it has a 49-day fuse: California gets that long, and after that the Attorney General may sue. What it found at CDCR, CIW and CCWF is a violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and the report's own phrase for the how is 'a longstanding pattern of sustained staff sexual misconduct, inadequate safeguards, failures in confidential reporting, improper investigative practices, and insufficient accountability measures.' Notice went back to 2000 at least, it says. The CIW cases it calls sustained run from 2013 to 2025, and the people in them were officers, a sergeant, a cook, a nurse, a mental-health counselor. Private suits against CDCR, CCWF and CIW, by its count: 320. DOJ findings report (PDF).

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from August 13, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible for what happened at CIW

The State of California, through CDCR, and the people who ran the prison. California law gives a public entity a shield for injuries to prisoners, which is why the cases already on file are built the way they are: against the officer, sergeant, cook, nurse or doctor who did it, with the State standing behind that employee and paying, because a separate statute makes it pay. Alongside that runs a federal civil-rights claim against the warden and the supervisors, for what the Justice Department called deliberate indifference. That is the road 130-plus women are already on in Sacramento, and it is the one the six women in the gynecologist case are on in federal court in Riverside.

What matters in every one of those cases is what CDCR knew. On that the record is now unusually loud. The federal findings say officials were on notice of staff sexual abuse at the women's prisons since at least 2000, that DOJ reviewed more than 350 allegations from the two prisons, and that investigators let cases sit for months, did not process DNA, and closed a lieutenant's file with nine other possible victims as unsubstantiated. In the gynecologist case, the court's January 2026 order recites that CDCR had complaints about Dr. Lee from 2016 on and kept him as the sole OB-GYN because, leadership said, he was the only certified one available.

And the person who did it. He is a defendant in his own name. The State's shield does not cover him, and CDCR's own body-camera footage, in more than one of the cases DOJ lists, is the evidence.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for sexual assault in a state prison

Ten years from the last time it happened, or three years from the day you connected it to the harm, whichever is later. That is Code of Civil Procedure 340.16, the adult statute, and every woman at CIW was an adult. For CIW that means anything from about September 2016 forward is inside the ten-year line today, and the line moves with the calendar. There is no closing date on this.

One honest correction to what you may have read elsewhere. California's 'revival window' for adult claims, the one closing December 31, 2026, and the separate cover-up window running through 2027, do not reach a state prison. The statute itself exempts public entities, and CDCR is one. So there is no countdown here, and anyone telling you there is has the wrong defendant. What there is instead is a government-claim step: a claim against the State has to be presented within six months, with a one-year fallback a lawyer can ask the court for. That step is the one people miss. A federal civil-rights claim has its own two-year clock, and the law pauses it, for up to two years, while you are inside.

Before September 2016? The three-years-from-discovery path is real, and for people who were incarcerated the courts have neither closed it nor settled it. That is a lawyer's call, not ours. Say the years as best you remember them and let them do the work.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You have a record, obviously. Every plaintiff in every case on this page has one. It is not a defense to anything.
You were paroled years ago and want nothing to do with that place. You never have to go back. The cases are filed in Sacramento and Riverside, and the lawyer comes to you.
You are still inside. The gynecologist case has women in custody among its plaintiffs. Someone on the outside can fill this in for you, and say so on the last screen.
It got you extra time, a write-up, a transfer, a cell search. The DOJ report treats that as retaliation, and retaliation is its own claim.
You told an investigator once and it went nowhere, or you never told anyone. Both are in the findings. Neither closes the door.
Somebody came around in 2023, or 2024, wanting you to sign up for this, and you passed. Fine. Nothing here needed you to have moved fast.

Facilities covered

Every housing unit, the reception center, the medical and mental-health buildings, the kitchens, and any work assignment or transport where CIW staff were in charge. The address is 16756 Chino-Corona Road; the prison is in Chino even though the mail says Corona. If your time at California Institution for Women came with time at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, or at Valley State before it changed over, say so; the same lawsuit covers both, and we have a CCWF page too.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue CIW for sexual abuse?

Women already have, in numbers: more than 130 in one Sacramento case, six in federal court over the prison gynecologist, others in coordinated cases going back to 2023. Whether you can turns mostly on when it happened and, for older conduct, when you understood what it did to you. Answer the questions above and a survivor, not a lawyer, calls you within a business day.

What did the DOJ find at the California Institution for Women?

That CDCR is violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments at CIW and CCWF. The August 13, 2026 findings describe a longstanding pattern of staff sexual misconduct, inadequate safeguards, no reliable confidential way to report, poor investigations and little accountability, and say the department knew. California was given 49 days to fix it before the Attorney General may sue.

Is there a deadline to file a lawsuit against CDCR?

For most women, ten years from the last act or three years from discovery under CCP 340.16, and that clock has no end date. What is short is the government-claim step, six months in the normal course, which is why sooner is better than later even though nothing on this page is a countdown. The revival windows advertised for 2026 and 2027 do not apply to a state prison.

Does it count if I didn't fight back or I went along with it?

Yes. An officer, a nurse, a doctor and a woman in custody are not equals, and California and federal law both treat sexual contact between staff and a prisoner as abuse regardless. Several of the sustained cases in the DOJ report were exactly that: contraband, favors, threats, then the act.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 5 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed California attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.