President Trump wants to reopen the maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay to house the “dregs of society.”
Mr. Trump outlined his vision Sunday on social media, saying he is directing federal law enforcement agencies “to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
“Rebuild, and open Alcatraz!” Mr. Trump said in yelling all-capital letters on Truth Social. “For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering.”
Mr. Trump said he sees it as an opportunity to return to a time when the United States was a more “serious nation” and “did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm.”
“No longer will we tolerate these Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets,” he said. “We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally.”
The announcement comes as Mr. Trump faces blowback over his efforts to deport illegal immigrants deemed to be gang members to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
Having once been an Army fort and then an Army prison, Alcatraz became a federal prison in 1934 and closed in 1963, shortly after the only possibly successful escape bid.
Alcatraz is now a public museum and one of San Francisco’s most popular tourist attractions.
But in the mid-20th century, the prison also known as “The Rock” was perhaps the most famous and notorious one in America, having held such infamous criminals as Al Capone, George “Machine-Gun” Kelly, and Alvin Karpis (the first man designated as “Public Enemy No. 1”).
The word “Alcatraz” also became a shorthand way to refer to an especially brutal or fearsome prison, and part of its reputation also was based on its being touted as inescapable.
Its reputation was so large that it was the setting for numerous TV shows and several A-list movies over the decades — from Burt Lancaster’s “Birdman of Alcatraz” and Clint Eastwood’s “Escape from Alcatraz” to Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage in “The Rock.”
Escaping the prison was hard enough, but being isolated on a rocky island in the middle of a cold seawater bay with violent and unpredictable tides made escaping to freedom near impossible.
Only three inmates — Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin — may have escaped, and their 1962 scheme was dramatized in the 1979 Eastwood film.
They escaped their cells but disappeared thereafter. The official report said they drowned in the bay but their bodies never washed up onto the rock, as would be expected in that event. Nor were any ever definitely tracked on the U.S. mainland, even if only to evade capture again.
Their fate remains a mystery.
• Victor Morton contributed to this report.
