What happened to you inside Valley State Prison for Women was not okay.

Avenue 24, Chowchilla, across the road from CCWF. That was Valley State Prison for Women, from 1995 until January 2013, when the State moved the women out, filled the place with men and dropped the last two words from the name. More than 3,700 women were inside when Amnesty International walked through in November 1998 and wrote down what they said about some of the male officers. The department that ran it then is the same one the U.S. Justice Department wrote to on August 13, 2026, and the questions below are for anyone whose years there were the women's years.

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 Valley State Prison for Women as the place it happened; we say so below, and we keep checking. The questions work now.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

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

The building has a different name now. Valley State Prison has held men since January 2013, and nothing on this page is about those years. It changes nothing about who answers for the women's years: the State of California, through CDCR, ran it then and runs it now, and the State is the defendant either way.
A criminal record changes nothing. Every woman at VSPW had one; that is what a prison is. The State took custody and owed safety in return.
It looked like a relationship, or going along felt like the only safe choice. California's Penal Code makes sexual activity between prison staff and a person in their custody a crime even where the adult in custody went along with it. There is no version of this that lands on the woman.
You filed a 602, or dropped it in the box, and it came back unfounded. Amnesty was told in 1998 that every allegation was promptly investigated. In 2026 the Justice Department said the department's ways of detecting and deterring staff sexual abuse don't work. Neither stamp is the last word.
You were bused across the road to CCWF in 2012 or 2013 when the prison changed over, and it kept happening there. Same department, same defendant. Say both places on the call.
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 Valley State Prison for Women, and what it doesn't

None of this is ours. A human-rights organisation, a newspaper, the State Auditor, a law firm 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 Valley State Prison for Women as the place it happened. What exists on this name is a 1999 report, a 2014 audit, a firm's statement of who it represents, and department-level records that name Chowchilla's other prison and Chino. We say which is which. Where a case is open we say a complaint alleges, because that is what it is, and the State of California and CDCR have not admitted liability in any pending case.

November 1998 to April 1999

Amnesty International spent two full days inside VSPW in November 1998, with access to every part of the prison, and sent its findings to the Director of the Department of Corrections on March 2, 1999. Before and during the visit it received reports that inmates were the victims of sexual abuse by some staff: male officers watching women dress and undress, touching breasts and genitals during pat searches against the approved procedure, sexually offensive language. It was told several guards were being investigated for sexual misconduct, including an alleged rape. The department's answer, in the same document, was that it did not tolerate sexual misconduct and investigated every allegation. Reports and allegations, not findings of a court; Amnesty said so itself. Amnesty International, findings on Valley State Prison (PDF).

November 22, 1999

ABC's Nightline ran six nights from Chowchilla that fall. Women told Ted Koppel that whatever they went to the clinic for, a cut finger, a chest cold, the visit ended in a pelvic exam. The prison's chief medical officer answered on camera that some of the women would deliberately like to be examined, since it was the only male contact they got. The Los Angeles Times reported what followed: the doctor was pulled out of the prison to a desk job in Sacramento, his supervisor said he would never have patient care again in the department, a second doctor was reassigned, and a later department investigation called the women's allegations essentially unfounded. All of that in one column, and we've left none of it out. Los Angeles Times, November 22, 1999.

June 2014

The California State Auditor found that 144 women in the state's prisons had tubal ligations between fiscal 2005-06 and 2012-13, that 39 of those had consent deficiencies, and that in no case did the medical notes show the woman had been counselled about the decision. Valley State Prison for Women was one of the prisons audited; the Center for Investigative Reporting, whose 2013 story prompted the audit, reported that VSPW's OB-GYN requested most of the sterilizations from that prison. This is not a sexual assault record and it is not the claim this page is about, and the State's program that paid survivors of it stopped taking applications on December 31, 2023. It is here because it is the one official finding on this name from the women's years, and because of what it says about consent. California State Auditor, report 2013-120.

September 27, 2023

A national 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, and 10 women survivors who were incarcerated at Valley State Prison, all inside the coordinated proceeding numbered JCCP 5276. That is a law firm's statement of who its clients are. We have not found a filed complaint that names Valley State as the place it happened, and we won't pretend we have. What the ten women's cases would join, if filed, is a Sacramento proceeding titled for the defendant, CDCR Women's Facilities Cases, which by March 2024 had 224 separate cases coordinated in front of one judge. 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 of them a Jane Roe, suing the State, CDCR and a list of named correctional officers over conduct they say ran from 2011 to 2023. It's pleaded under Code of Civil Procedure 340.16, with 340.1 added for some of the plaintiffs. The prisons pleaded are CCWF and CIW. Valley State appears exactly once, as a landmark, the prison across the road from CCWF. No plaintiff says it happened there. Allegations, all of it, until a court says otherwise; the case is pending. The complaint (PDF).

August 13, 2026

The U.S. Department of Justice told the State and CDCR in writing that it has reasonable cause to believe CDCR, CCWF and CIW are violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments: an unbroken pattern of often violent sexual misconduct by staff from 2000 through 2024, continuing to the present, allegations the State itself sustained, 320 private lawsuits. The letter does not mention Valley State Prison anywhere. It is on this page because it is addressed to the department that ran VSPW for eighteen years, and because the whole of that system record, the conviction of a CCWF officer in January 2025 included, sits on the CDCR page linked above rather than here. 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 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 Valley State Prison for Women 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 the building, and not the men's prison that has the name now. CDCR hired the staff at VSPW, wrote the pat-search policy Amnesty called inherently abusive, ran the drop box and the investigations, and moved the same staff and the same women across the road when it emptied the place in 2013. That is the defendant, and it already has a page here with its record on it. The theory in one sentence: the State owed the women it held protection from its own staff, was told, 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 against CDCR are pleaded against the individual officers, with the State standing behind them and paying, alongside federal civil rights claims for deliberate indifference and California's Bane Act. Then there is Government Code 945.9, which lifts the government-claim step and sets its own clock where the assault was by a law enforcement officer. Whether a correctional officer counts, 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, and nobody here will promise them. And the records above are the department's records and a human-rights report, not a court's finding about Valley State; what happened to you there is your evidence, and the State kept the files. Separate pages exist for CCWF and for CIW, where the filed records name the prison. If you were at more than one, say so.

Your deadline: California's statute of limitations for sexual assault at Valley State Prison for Women

Straight answer first: the plain ten-year rule has run out on the calendar for Valley State's women's years. Code of Civil Procedure 340.16 gives an adult ten years from the last act, or three years from the day she understood what it did to her, whichever is later. The last woman left VSPW in January 2013, so the ten years closed in January 2023 for anything that ended there. That is why this page does not say the door is open. What it says is that three narrower routes exist, and a lawyer decides which, if any, is yours.

One. California revived adult claims for assaults from January 1, 2009 onward, in section 340.16(b)(3), and the revival's text does not exclude the State. For Valley State's last four years, 2009 to January 2013, a lawyer may be able to use it, and it closes December 31, 2026. The separate cover-up window that runs through 2027 leaves public entities out, and CDCR is one; don't count on that one. Two. Discovery. Three years from the day you connected the harm to what happened, and there's no fixed end date on that limb at all. When did you connect it? That's a conversation, not a calendar. Three. The officer's own clock. Where the person was a law enforcement officer, Government Code 945.9 runs ten years from the day he leaves the agency, or ten years from a criminal judgment against him, whichever comes later. Which is why we'll ask something you might not expect: after September 2016, was he still working for CDCR? Many of Valley State's officers stayed with the department when the prison changed over. 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. The federal civil rights route has its own two-year clock, paused for up to two years while you are incarcerated. And if you were under 18 when it happened, rare in a state prison but not unheard of, the childhood rules in section 340.11 are longer, run to age 40 or five years from discovery for anything before 2024, and need no government claim first. Say the years as best you remember them; that is the first thing the lawyer works out.

Your situation still qualifies even if

Nobody has ever asked you about Valley State. The advertisers list the name; the filed records don't. Both things are true, and neither closes your door by itself.
You never filed a 602, or you used the drop box and heard nothing back. Amnesty wrote in 1999 that the drop box was meant to be confidential and that women doubted it was.
You were released years ago and put it away. The discovery limb has no end date on the calendar, and the officer's own clock may be longer still.
You went from Valley State to CCWF in the changeover and it continued. The CDCR page and the CCWF page take the same questions; pick the main place here and say the rest on the call.
You don't have paperwork, names, or dates. The department kept the files, and a case number from 1998 is still a case number.
You haven't been released yet. Women in custody are plaintiffs in the cases already filed against CDCR. Someone on the outside can start this for you.

Facilities covered

Valley State Prison for Women, 21633 Avenue 24, Chowchilla, and we mean the whole of it from the day it opened in 1995 until the last woman left in January 2013: the yards, the reception center, the clinic, and the SHU, which was the only Security Housing Unit for women anywhere in California. Conversion started October 2012. Across the road, or down to Chino, or up to the new yard at Folsom, that's where the women went, and the sign lost two words. Since then it's been a men's prison, which isn't what this page is about; if that's where you were, the questions still work, just say so and say when. Other pages, in case one of them is really yours: the department's is /cdcr-womens-prisons-survivors, with the federal findings and the Sacramento cases on it, CCWF's is /central-california-womens-facility-survivors, CIW's is /california-institution-for-women-survivors, and the defendant is the same whichever gate you walked through.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Valley State Prison for Women for sexual abuse?

Not the prison; it closed as a women's prison in January 2013 and was never the party anyway. The defendants are the officer or staff member and the State of California through CDCR, which is who 144 women sued in Sacramento over CCWF and CIW and who the Justice Department wrote to in August 2026. Whether you can depends on the years, on who it was, and on what you knew when, which is what the questions above sort out.

Amnesty International went into Valley State. What did they find?

The whole of it is in the record above, first entry. Short version: two days inside in November 1998, then a letter to the Department of Corrections on March 2, 1999, passing on what inmates had told them about some male officers, the watching, the touching during pat searches, and a note that several guards were under investigation for sexual misconduct, an alleged rape among them. Amnesty's own view was that the pat-search procedure was inherently abusive. Reports, though. Not court findings, and the department disputed them at the time.

Does Valley State Prison still hold women?

No. The conversion began in October 2012 and was done by January 2013; men have been held there ever since, under the shorter name Valley State Prison. This page covers the women's years only, 1995 to January 2013. The men's prison carries no record on this page and we don't imply one.

Has anyone actually sued over sexual abuse at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla?

Not one that names it as the place, in anything we have read. A law firm said in September 2023 that it represents ten women who were at Valley State, inside the Sacramento proceeding against CDCR. The big Sacramento complaint names CCWF and CIW and mentions Valley State once, as the prison across the road. If a filed case naming Valley State turns up, this page changes the same week.

How long do I have to file a lawsuit for sexual assault at a California women's prison?

For an adult, ten years from the last act or three years from discovery under CCP 340.16, and for Valley State that ten-year limb closed in January 2023. What's left is the revival for 2009-and-later assaults, which closes December 31, 2026, the discovery limb, and the law-enforcement-officer statute's own ten-year clock, which may reach a correctional officer. Against the State there is usually a six-month government claim first unless that statute lifts it. A lawyer works out which applies.

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.