What happened to you inside a California women's prison was not okay.

The State of California ran every one of them. Chowchilla, Chino, Valley State before it changed over, the women's yard at Folsom. One department, CDCR, one set of rules, one defendant. On August 13, 2026 the U.S. Department of Justice told that department in writing that it is violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the women it holds, because staff sexual misconduct has run unbroken since 2000 and the department knew. A Sacramento judge is already coordinating hundreds of cases against CDCR under one title. If you did time in any of its women's facilities, this is about you, whichever gate you walked through.

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This applies to you no matter what

You were at Valley State or Folsom, not Chowchilla or Chino. The federal letter and the big Sacramento complaint name CCWF and CIW, we say that plainly below. But the department that ran Valley State until 2013 and the Folsom women's yard until 2023 is the same department those records are about, and it is the party a lawsuit names. Where you were held changes the facts, not the defendant.
A criminal record changes nothing. Every woman in every case on this page has one. The State took custody and owed safety in return; the Justice Department's finding is that it did not deliver.
It wasn't one of the officers in the news. The Sacramento complaint names 37 officers. The state Inspector General counted at least 83 employees accused across the lawsuits. The DOJ finding is about the pattern, not a man.
It felt like a relationship, or going along was the safer choice. California's Penal Code makes sexual activity between prison staff and a person in custody a crime with or without consent. There is no version of this that lands on the woman.
You filed a 602 and it came back unsubstantiated, or you were the one moved to ad seg. The Inspector General rated 86 percent of CDCR's own sexual-assault investigations from early 2025 inadequate or in need of improvement. That stamp is not the last word.
Still inside, on parole, or out of state. A family member or a friend can fill this in and say so on the last screen. Immigration status doesn't matter either.

What the record says about CDCR's women's prisons, and which prisons it names

None of this is ours. A federal civil rights division, a Sacramento judge, a Madera County jury, court filings and the reporters who read them wrote it, and every line links to where it came from. Where a case is still open we say a complaint alleges, because that is what it is. One thing to be straight about: the filed records below name Central California Women's Facility and the California Institution for Women. Valley State Prison for Women and Folsom Women's Facility are on this page because the same department ran them in those years, not because a filed record we have read names them. The State of California and CDCR have not admitted liability in any pending civil case.

September 27, 2023

A New York firm announced a new complaint in Sacramento County Superior Court and said it now represented more than 400 women who had been held at Chowchilla, 20 who had been at CIW in Chino, and 10 who had been at Valley State Prison, all inside the coordinated proceeding numbered JCCP 5276. That Valley State figure is a law firm's own statement of who it represents. We have not found a filed complaint that names Valley State as the place it happened, and we won't pretend we have. Slater Slater Schulman, press release.

December 2023

Jane Roe et al. v. State of California, case 23CV013894, Sacramento County Superior Court: 144 women, every one a Jane Roe, against the State, CDCR and 37 named correctional officers, for conduct alleged between 2011 and 2023. The prisons pleaded are CIW and CCWF. What does the complaint say the department did? Hired without policies that would keep predators out, gave staff unsupervised access to women, didn't train them, and then, in the complaint's own phrase, ratified what followed through willful ignorance. Allegations, all of it, until a court says otherwise. The statutes it's brought under are Code of Civil Procedure 340.16 and, for some of the plaintiffs, 340.1. Valley State appears once, as a landmark across the road. Folsom does not appear. The case is pending. The complaint (PDF).

March 2024

Look at what the Sacramento court calls the coordinated proceeding. Not a prison. CDCR Women's Facilities Cases, JCCP 5276, opened April 26, 2023; the title is the defendant. By March 2024 Judge Lauri Damrell had ordered 224 separate cases coordinated in front of her, and she said out loud that the court's normal case-management system wouldn't be enough for it. The Daily Journal traced the wave to AB 1455, a 2021 law that let current and former prisoners bring sexual-assault claims without the Government Claims Act's shorter deadlines. Daily Journal, March 18, 2024.

September 4, 2024

The U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation under CRIPA into whether CDCR protects the women at CCWF and CIW from sexual abuse by staff. Why then? DOJ said so itself. Hundreds of private lawsuits inside two years. One suit for 21 women at CIW, covering 2014 to 2020. And a state working group's report from March 2024 on what it called cultural deficiencies in how staff sexual abuse got handled. DOJ, investigation opened.

January 14, 2025

Gregory Rodriguez worked at CCWF from 2010 to 2022. Women reported him as early as 2014, and it took CDCR until July 2022 to open its investigation, which, more than any number, is the piece this page is actually about. Eight years. The numbers, though, since you'll want them. Ask anyone who sat in that Madera County courtroom for the four months it took; thirteen women testified. When the jury came back it was guilty on 64 counts, 59 of them felonies, and the felonies were rape, rape under color of authority, oral copulation, sexual penetration and sodomy, nine women, plus five misdemeanor sexual batteries, and that was out of 97 counts charged, so no, not every count, but most. The sentence came August 14, 2025. 224 years. A CCWF record, yes. Also a CDCR officer. KQED, the verdict.

February 2, 2025

The gynecologist case. Six Jane Does and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners sued Dr. Scott Lee, CIW's gynecologist, and a list of CDCR and prison health officials in federal court in Riverside, case 5:25-cv-00283, alleging abusive exams from 2016 into May 2024 and that officials knew. On January 13, 2026 the court dismissed some claims and let the core of the case go forward with leave to amend. It is pending. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, case file.

December 9, 2025

The state Inspector General's audit, as CalMatters read it: at least 279 women have sued CDCR alleging sexual misconduct by at least 83 prison employees. Of the department's own internal-affairs investigations from the first half of 2025, 86 percent were rated inadequate or needing improvement, and it took an average of nine months for CDCR's lawyers to send a case to investigators at all. The audit does not name the prisons. CalMatters, December 2025.

August 13, 2026

The Justice Department's findings, addressed to the State and CDCR. Reasonable cause to believe CDCR, CCWF and CIW are violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments through an unbroken pattern of often violent sexual misconduct by staff from 2000 through 2024, continuing to the present. The letter says the State itself repeatedly sustained allegations of staff sexual abuse at the two prisons, counts more than 65 alleged Rodriguez victims and 320 private lawsuits, and calls the failures a pattern or practice of deliberate indifference. It does not mention Valley State or Folsom. California was given 49 days, to about October 1, 2026, before the Attorney General may sue. DOJ findings letter (PDF).

We checked this on September 13, 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 in a California women's prison lawsuit

The officer or staff member who did it, and behind him the State of California, through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. That is who the 144 Roe plaintiffs sued, that is who the coordinated proceeding is named for, and that is who the federal findings letter is addressed to. It does not matter which of its women's prisons you were in. CDCR hired the staff at Valley State and at the Folsom women's yard under the same policies it used at Chowchilla and Chino, and the Justice Department's finding is about those policies: no reliable confidential way to report, investigations that sat, sustained cases with no consequences, officials on notice since at least 2000. The theory in one sentence: the State owed the women it held protection from its own staff, knew, and didn't provide it.

California law bends the route, and you should hear it from us. A public entity has a statutory shield for injuries to prisoners, so the cases already filed are pleaded against the individual officers, with the State standing behind them and paying, as it has, alongside federal civil rights claims for deliberate indifference and California's Bane Act. Then there's Government Code 945.9, the statute the Daily Journal credits for the wave of filings. What it does is lift the government-claim step, but only where the assault was by a law enforcement officer. Does a correctional officer count? No appellate court has said. So a lawyer argues it; nobody should assume it.

Two honest limits. Punitive damages are not available against the State itself, and nobody here will promise them. And for Valley State and Folsom, the records above are the department's records, not those facilities'; what happened to you there is your evidence, and the State kept the files. Separate pages exist for CCWF and for CIW; if that is where you were, either page takes you to the same questions.

Your deadline: California's 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 understood what it did to you, whichever is later. That is Code of Civil Procedure 340.16, the rule for anyone assaulted as an adult, and every woman in a CDCR prison was one. If it was about September 2016 or later, at any of the four facilities, you are inside the ten years today on the calendar alone, and the line moves forward every month. That covers most of Folsom's years and everyone at CCWF and CIW from 2016 on.

Earlier than that, and it gets specific. California reopened adult claims for conduct from 2009 onward until December 31, 2026, in section 340.16(b)(3), and that revival does not exclude the State on its face, so for the 2009-to-2016 years, which is Valley State's last four years and Folsom's first three, a lawyer may be able to use it, and it closes at the end of this year. The separate cover-up window that runs through 2027 leaves public entities out, and CDCR is one; don't count on it. Before 2009, it comes down to discovery, or to a second statute. Government Code 945.9 sets its own clock where the person was a law enforcement officer: ten years after the officer leaves the agency, or ten years after a criminal judgment against him, whichever is later. Which is why we'll ask you a question you might not expect: was he still working for CDCR after 2016? Valley State's staff mostly stayed with the department when the prison changed over in 2013. Whether that statute reaches a correctional officer is unsettled, so we say may, and a lawyer decides.

The step people miss. A claim against the State usually has to be presented to the government within six months (Government Code 911.2), with a late-claim procedure that can stretch it to a year. Section 945.9 lifts that step entirely for an assault by a law enforcement officer, if it applies. For other staff, a nurse, a cook, a counselor, the six months stands. And the federal civil rights route has its own two-year clock, paused for up to two years while you're incarcerated. Which clock you're on is the first thing the lawyer works out. Say the years as best you remember them.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You were at Valley State or Folsom and nobody has ever asked you about it. The advertisers list those names; the filed records don't. Both things are true, and neither closes your door.
You never filed a 602, because you saw what happened to the women who did.
You were released years ago and put it away. Ten years is long, discovery can be longer, and the officer's own clock may be longer still.
You haven't been released yet. Women in custody are plaintiffs in the cases already filed. Someone on the outside can start this for you.
You told an officer, or an investigator, and it went nowhere. The Inspector General's numbers say that was the norm, not the exception.
You don't have paperwork, or names, or dates. The department kept the files. That is what discovery is for.
You were at more than one of them. Pick the main one above, say the rest on the call. Same defendant.

Facilities covered

Say where; that's the main thing, and the questions work just as well for a fire camp, a county jail on a CDCR hold, or a transport van between any of these. Now the four, because the record treats them differently and so will we. Two of them the federal findings and the Sacramento complaint name outright, Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino, and because they're named each has a page of its own here, /central-california-womens-facility-survivors and /california-institution-for-women-survivors. The records don't name the other two as somewhere it happened; we've said so already and we'll keep saying it. Valley State Prison for Women was across the road from CCWF. It took women from 1995 until the conversion to a men's prison finished in January 2013, it's Valley State Prison now, men, and this page is about the women's years and nothing after. Folsom Women's Facility, the one that's easy to forget, was a 523-bed yard run under Folsom State Prison's administration, and women were there from January 2013 until CDCR deactivated it in January 2023. Both on this page because CDCR ran them, not on a record of their own, and if that distinction matters to your case a lawyer will tell you how much.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue CDCR for sexual abuse in prison?

Women already have, in numbers: 144 in one Sacramento case, 224 coordinated before one judge as of March 2024, and by the Justice Department's count 320 private suits. The defendants are the officers and the State that stands behind them, not the building. Whether you can depends on when it happened, who it was, and what you knew when, which is what the questions above sort out.

Is there a class action against California women's prisons?

Not a class action against the prisons, no. There is one complaint with 144 named plaintiffs, hundreds of individual cases coordinated in Sacramento as JCCP 5276, and a federal case over CIW's gynecologist that asked for class treatment and is still being litigated. Each woman's case is her own, which means you are not waiting on someone else's verdict.

I was at Valley State Prison for Women, or at Folsom Women's Facility, not CCWF or CIW. Does any of this reach me?

The defendant is the same, the State of California through CDCR, so yes, the same questions apply. What is different is the record: the federal findings and the Sacramento complaint name CCWF and CIW, and we have not found a filed case that names Valley State or Folsom as the place it happened. A law firm has said it represents 10 women from Valley State. For Valley State's 2009-to-2013 years the revival that closes December 31, 2026 may apply; for Folsom, anything from about September 2016 on is inside the ten-year rule today. A lawyer confirms which.

How long do I have to sue over a sexual assault in a California prison?

Start with CCP 340.16, since every woman in a CDCR prison was an adult: ten years from the last act, or three years from discovery, whichever is later. For the 2009-to-2016 years there's also a revival, and it closes December 31, 2026. Against the State there is usually a six-month government claim first, unless the law-enforcement-officer statute lifts it, and the federal civil rights route runs two years with time paused while you're incarcerated. If it was 2016 or later the ten-year rule is open on the calendar alone. A lawyer works out the rest.

What did the Justice Department find about California women's prisons?

That CDCR, CCWF and CIW are violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments: an unbroken pattern of staff sexual misconduct from 2000 through 2024 and continuing, allegations the State itself sustained, and investigations and reporting systems that didn't work. The letter is dated August 13, 2026 and gave California 49 days before the Attorney General may sue. It does not name Valley State or Folsom.

How much will a sexual abuse lawyer cost me?

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 6 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.