What happened to you inside Folsom Women's Facility was not okay.

Outside the wall at Folsom State Prison, two dorms and a yard. That was Folsom Women's Facility, FWF, the northernmost place California kept women. Ten years, no more. Women bused up from Chino and Chowchilla in January 2013; CDCR shut it on January 10, 2023. Same department the whole time. Which matters, because of what the U.S. Department of Justice put in writing to that department on August 13, 2026: it is failing to protect women prisoners from sexual abuse by its own staff, and has been, without a break, since 2000. The letter names Chowchilla and Chino. Not Folsom. We'll be straight with you about that below. But the defendant is the one department, and if your years inside were Folsom years, this page is for you.

WatchingSeptember 2026: the Justice Department's 49-day clock on CDCR runs to about October 1, 2026, and California's revival for assaults from 2009 onward closes December 31, 2026. No filed complaint we have read names Folsom Women's Facility as the place it happened; what does name it is two CDCR audits, below. We keep checking. The questions work now.

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Looking for the page about the whole department? California women's prisons (CDCR) survivors: CCWF, CIW, Valley State and Folsom on one page.

This applies to you no matter what

Folsom is not in the federal letter. True, and we say it again in the record. The letter is addressed to CDCR, and CDCR is the department that hired, trained and supervised every officer on the Folsom women's yard from the day it opened to the day it closed. Where you were held changes the facts of your case, not who answers for it.
A criminal record changes nothing. Everyone at FWF had one; that is what the place was. The State took custody of the women there and owed them safety in return, and the Justice Department's finding is that the department did not deliver.
It felt like a relationship, or going along was the safer choice in a dorm with free movement and nowhere to hide. 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. At Folsom State Prison that was the usual outcome: in the twelve months before the June 2022 audit, the prison's own numbers show 19 staff-on-inmate sexual abuse allegations and zero substantiated. That stamp is not the last word.
The yard is gone. FWF was deactivated in January 2023 and the women were moved. A closed facility does not close a case; the department still exists, and it kept the files.
Still inside, on parole, out of state, or asking for a sister or a daughter. 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 Folsom Women's Facility, and what it doesn't

None of this is ours. Two certified PREA auditors, a Sacramento court file, a state Inspector General's audit as a newsroom read it, and a federal civil rights division wrote it, and every line links to where it came from. One thing straight, before the dates: no filed complaint or charging document we have read names Folsom Women's Facility as the place it happened. What exists on this name is two CDCR audits of the prison, with numbers in them. The lawsuits, the conviction and the federal findings are the department's record and name Chowchilla and Chino; the whole of it is on the CDCR women's prisons page, and we don't re-tell it here. Where a case is open we say a complaint alleges, because that is what it is. The State of California and CDCR have not admitted liability in any pending case.

January 2013

The first women moved in. A local paper counted more than 151 transferred by early March, all from CIW in Corona and CCWF in Chowchilla, into a building that had sat empty since the 2009 budget cuts. Dorm B held 201; Dorm A was being readied for 202 more. The rules for who got sent there: level 1, 2 or 3, five years or less left, discipline-free for a year. CDCR's own later description: a 523-bed stand-alone facility under the administration of Folsom State Prison, activated January 2013. Village Life, March 4, 2013.

March 17 to 22, 2019

A certified PREA audit team walked Folsom State Prison and the women's facility. Its report, dated May 6, 2019, says FSP/FWF had 20 allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment in the previous twelve months, all investigated, one referred to CDCR's Office of Internal Affairs and still pending. Of the seven files the auditor pulled, three were substantiated. During an interview at FWF a woman reported being retaliated against for reporting sexual abuse; the audit team took it to the administrators. The auditor also noted a blind spot in the program area next to Dorm B, and that the phone in the restricted unit meant for reaching the Inspector General or the rape crisis line had been deactivated. The facility was rated as meeting the standards. PREA audit report, FSP/FWF, May 6, 2019 (PDF).

June 12 to 17, 2022, report February 27, 2023

The next PREA audit. 266 women were on the Folsom women's yard the first day. For the whole prison, men's yards and FWF together, the twelve months before the visit brought 19 allegations of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse and 10 of staff-on-inmate sexual harassment. Not one went to a criminal investigation. Of the 19, eight were still open when the auditor wrote, four called unfounded, seven unsubstantiated, none substantiated. The audit doesn't say how many were Folsom women's, and we won't guess. All 45 standards met. And it's this report, not a press release, that puts the closing date on paper: CDCR deactivated Folsom Women's Facility effective January 10, 2023. PREA audit report, FSP, February 27, 2023 (PDF).

December 2023

144 women, every one of them a Jane Roe, sued the State, CDCR, named correctional officers and 500 Does. Jane Roe et al. v. State of California, case 23CV013894, Sacramento County Superior Court, sitting inside the coordinated proceeding JCCP 5276. What they say happened, happened at CIW and CCWF, between 2004 and 2023, the bulk of it 2013 through 2022. The word Folsom is not in it; we read the whole complaint looking. Pleaded under Code of Civil Procedure 340.16 and, for some plaintiffs, 340.1. Allegations, all of it, until a court says otherwise. Pending. The complaint (PDF).

December 9, 2025

CalMatters read the state Inspector General's audit of CDCR's internal-affairs work: at least 279 women have sued the department alleging sexual misconduct by at least 83 prison employees, 86 percent of the internal-affairs caseload reviewed was rated inadequate or needing improvement, and it took the department's lawyers an average of nine months to send a case to investigators. The report does not name the officers or the prisons. So it neither names Folsom nor rules it out. CalMatters, December 2025.

August 13, 2026

The U.S. Department of Justice issued its findings to the State and CDCR: reasonable cause to believe CDCR, CCWF and CIW violate 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 State itself, the letter says, repeatedly sustained allegations of staff sexual abuse at the two prisons. It counts more than 375 prisoner allegations there between 2023 and June 2025, and 320 private lawsuits. It gives California 49 days, to about October 1, 2026, before the Attorney General may sue. It does not mention Folsom Women's Facility; the investigation was of Chowchilla and Chino from the day it opened, September 4, 2024. DOJ findings letter (PDF).

We checked this on September 15, 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 Folsom Women's Facility lawsuit

The officer or staff member who did it, and behind him the State of California through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Not Folsom State Prison as a thing on its own; the women's yard was run under the warden at Folsom, and the warden works for CDCR. That is who the 144 Roe plaintiffs sued, that is who the Sacramento court's coordinated proceeding is named for, CDCR Women's Facilities Cases, and that is who the federal findings letter is addressed to. The department has a page of its own here, /cdcr-womens-prisons-survivors, and the same questions run on both. The theory in one sentence: the State owed the women it held protection from its own staff, was on notice, and didn't provide it. For Folsom, the notice part is your evidence and the department's files, not a finding somebody has already written down, and we'd rather tell you that here than have a lawyer tell you later.

California law bends the route, and you should hear it from us. A public entity has a statutory shield for injuries to prisoners, Government Code 844.6, 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 is Government Code 945.9. What it does is lift the government-claim step, and set its own ten-year clock, where the assault was by a law enforcement officer. CDCR's correctional officers are peace officers under the Penal Code. Does that make 945.9 theirs? No appellate court has said. A lawyer argues it; nobody should assume it.

Two honest limits. Punitive damages are not available against the State itself, Government Code 818, and nobody here will promise them. And the records above are the department's records. The two audits that do name Folsom are audits that passed the prison. What happened to you there is the Folsom record, and it starts when you say it.

Your deadline: California's statute of limitations for sexual assault at Folsom Women's Facility

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 everyone at Folsom Women's Facility was one. Now do the arithmetic for this yard, which ran January 2013 to January 2023. If it was about September 2016 or later, you are inside the ten years today on the calendar alone, and for the last women there, the ones moved out in January 2023, that runs into 2033. That is most of Folsom's years and most of the women who passed through it.

The first three and a half years, January 2013 to about September 2016, are the ones that take a lawyer. 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 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. Then there is Government Code 945.9, which sets its own clock where the person was a law enforcement officer: ten years after he leaves the agency, or ten years after a criminal judgment against him, whichever is later. When the Folsom women's yard closed its staff didn't vanish; most stayed with the department. So we'll ask something you might not expect: was he still working for CDCR after 2016? Whether that statute reaches a correctional officer is unsettled, so we say may, and a lawyer decides. Before 2009 you weren't at Folsom, the yard didn't exist; the questions still take the answer and the same lawyer sorts out where you were.

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

Nobody has ever asked you about Folsom. The advertisers list the name; the filed records don't. Both are true, and neither closes your door.
You never filed a 602, because in a dorm that open, everyone would have known by dinner.
You filed one and it came back unsubstantiated. The 2022 numbers say that was the usual answer at Folsom.
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 were moved out in January 2023 and it followed you to Chowchilla or Chino. Say both. Same department, same case.
You don't have paperwork, or names, or dates. The department kept the files, and a closed yard doesn't shred them. That is what discovery is for.

Facilities covered

Folsom Women's Facility, on the grounds of Folsom State Prison at 300 Prison Road in Represa, outside the secured perimeter: Dorm A and Dorm B, both yards, the program and administration building between them, the serving kitchen, receiving and release, the clinic, the classrooms, the canteen, a transport to or from it, and any work assignment where FWF staff were in charge. January 2013 to January 10, 2023, and nothing after; the men's prison next door is not what this page is about. The department that ran it has its own page, /cdcr-womens-prisons-survivors, with the federal findings and the Sacramento cases on it, and the two prisons those records name have theirs, /central-california-womens-facility-survivors and /california-institution-for-women-survivors. If your time at Folsom came with time at either of those, or at Valley State before it changed over, say so on the call. Whichever gate you walked through, the defendant is the same.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Folsom Women's Facility for sexual abuse?

Not the facility; it closed in January 2023 and it was never the legal party anyway. The defendants in every case like this are the officer or staff member and the State of California through CDCR, which ran the Folsom women's yard for all ten years. 144 women are suing that department in one Sacramento case now. 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 lawsuit about Folsom Women's Facility?

Not one we have found that names it. We read the 144-plaintiff Sacramento complaint and the Justice Department's findings letter looking for the word Folsom, and it isn't in either; both are about Chowchilla and Chino. What names Folsom is two CDCR PREA audits, 2019 and 2023, with allegation counts in them. Law firms advertise on the name. None we have read cites a filed case. That is why this page is marked Watching.

How long do I have to sue over a sexual assault at a California women's prison?

Start with CCP 340.16, since every woman at Folsom was an adult: ten years from the last act, or three years from discovery, whichever is later. Folsom ran 2013 to 2023, so anything from about September 2016 on is open on the calendar alone. For 2013 to 2016 there's a revival that closes December 31, 2026, and possibly the officer statute, Government Code 945.9. Against the State there is usually a six-month government claim first, unless 945.9 lifts it, and the federal civil rights route runs two years with time paused while you're incarcerated. 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 Folsom Women's Facility.

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.