Former FCI Dublin prisoners say they haven't felt sunlight in months

OAKLAND, Calif. - Carolyn Knudsen has now been living in a federal detention center in downtown Miami since her old prison, the Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, California, was shut down in mid-April.

She told her father that she hasn't felt or been in direct sunlight in all that time, and can't take any classes, which would allow her to shave time off her prison sentence, because the programs are limited to 20 people per course.

"Emotionally, she can't get outside, and it's draining on her," Paul Knudsen said in an interview this week, describing his daughter's mood as she serves her time in FDC Miami, a high-rise detention center that houses pretrial detainees. "She is more depressed and is crying when I talk to her."

Carolyn Knudsen isn't the only FCI Dublin transfer who said she lacks sunlight.

Susan Beaty, an attorney with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice who is representing hundreds of women formerly held at FCI Dublin, said the same story is true at two other federal detention centers: Federal Detention Center SeaTac in Seattle and FDC Philadelphia.

Beaty visited clients in Seattle this month and said about 40 women complained they have no access to sunlight; at least one of the women is suffering from a Vitamin D deficiency.

Beaty added that, like Knudsen, her clients also have little to no access to programming and classes because the holding centers are built for short-term prisoners, and are not full-time prisons with yards, like FCI Dublin had.

"There is no outdoor space," Beaty said. "The folks we talked to in SeaTac made it very clear that they had not been outside since arriving there in April. So, for several months now, they've not had access to direct sunlight or fresh air. This is particularly concerning for people who have medical and mental health conditions."

"The lack of access to outdoor space has really compounded the impact of these transfers and the trauma that our clients have already been through," Beaty added.

Roughly 200 of the 605 women transferred from the now-shuttered FCI Dublin are being held in these three detention centers operated by the Bureau of Prisons. 

The BOP abruptly shut down FCI Dublin following a years-long sex abuse scandal by guards and the appointment of a "special master" to oversee reforms at the low-security prison, located on a large plot of open land, where women were allowed to walk outside and have views of the East Bay hills. 

The Bureau of Prisons disagrees with the women's assessment of a lack of sunlight. 

In an email, the BOP stated that the federal detention centers in Miami, Seattle and Philadelphia "have access to sunlight in designated outdoor recreation areas for recreation and leisure time."

The BOP added that incarcerated people may access these recreation areas any time they are permitted outside their cells.  

Walls or fences enclose these areas for security but are open to the sky, the BOP said, and allow incarcerated "individuals to spend time outdoors and get sunlight and fresh air."

BOP spokesman Emory Nelson pointed to a viral video last year showing male inmates at FDC Miami whistling through partially open windows to people at an adjacent apartment building pool as proof of this access. 

The BOP declined to provide any photos of what the "sunlight access" entailed, and could not immediately explain the discrepancy with what the women and their lawyers described. It's also possible the female FCI Dublin transfers in Miami are not allowed on the side where the men were whistling.

Beaty, who was also not allowed to view what access to sunlight her clients are given at SeaTac, said the issue might be a semantic one. 

Her clients did say there are openings in the ceilings, almost like a small skylight, in some of the recreation rooms.

But the women also told her that these openings do not provide direct sunlight, and they cannot see the sky; they can only see the floor of the story above them. 

"I think they might be referring to narrow skylights that are in interior rooms, that women sometimes have access to," Beaty said. "That is not the same as being outside in the sun and breathing fresh air, which, you know, for all of its faults and for the many things that Dublin lacked, at the very least, people were allowed outside every day."

Another woman who was held at FDC SeaTac told Beaty that there are some window screens on the top levels of the building, but this fresh air is piped in 20 feet above the floor and that the women's side does not receive direct sunlight. 

The woman told Beaty that the BOP is aware of this issue because unit team managers told the women on Trulincs, the official BOP communications system, to "drink milk" to help with Vitamin D deficiencies. 

Yolanda Huang, an Oakland attorney, knows the sunlight issue well.

She sued San Francisco County jails over the exact issue.

And in October 2023, a judge largely ruled in her clients' favor, saying that San Francisco violated the rights of people held at its jail in San Bruno by keeping them indoors all day and must allow some of them at least 15 minutes a day of access to sunlight – with the caveat that they get this access after serving a year in jail.

Huang said to date, her clients have not yet received this access to sunlight. 

Jail spokeswoman Tara Moriarty disagreed with Huang's assessment.

 Last year, the Sheriff’s Office made changes, "including significant structural modifications to various areas of the facility, to increase access to direct sunlight," Moriarty said. 

Huang also said that it depends on what "access to sunlight" means. 

For instance, if there is an opening in the ceiling and the sun doesn't pass over that area when the incarcerated people are in the rec room at that time, then it's a moot point.

Also, having a window that doesn't open – which Knudsen described as her situation in Miami – isn't good enough; the sun can't penetrate through. 

"Having sunlight on your skin is vital to human health," Huang said, quoting a medical expert she had testify. "Sunlight on your skin helps keep hypertension down and hypertension is the main cause of mortality."

Huang said she won her case largely because she proved that being in jail or prison shouldn't give you a chronic illness.

"It would be unconstitutional to force you to be in jail and breathe secondhand smoke," she said. "We were able to prove that deprivation of sunlight causes chronic illness."

In the federal prison case, Beaty said she and her colleagues passed along these complaints to the court-appointed special master who is vested with the power of overseeing the former FCI Dublin women's care.

To date, Beaty said she is not aware that Special Master Wendy Still has visited any other prison or made a ruling on this issue.

The Knudsens really hope the sunlight issue will be addressed.

"Carolyn was found guilty and sentenced to a minimum security prison," her father said.  "The 8th Amendment in the Constitution states that there is to be no cruel and unusual punishment. Dublin was mainly closed for having a rape squad. That is a cruel punishment. Also, the failure of the BOP to correct the situation and then sending inmates to many locations so that their voices could not be a united voice could be construed as an additional punishment."

Lisa Fernandez is a reporter for KTVU. Email Lisa at lisa.fernandez@fox.com or call her at 510-874-0139. Or follow her on Twitter @ljfernandez