President Donald Trump claims to have instructed his government to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the famous prison located on a remote island near San Francisco, which has been closed for over 60 years.
Trump posted on Sunday night on his social media platform Truth Social that: “The United States has been plagued for too long by violent and repeat offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than misery and suffering. When we were a more serious nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals and keep them away from anyone they could harm. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
“That is why, today,” he added, “I am instructing the Bureau of Prisons, along with the Department of Justice, the FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen Alcatraz prison with significant expansions and reconstructions to house the most ruthless and violent criminals in the United States.”
Trump’s order for the reconstruction and reopening of a correctional facility that was closed long ago represents the latest attack in his efforts to reform the way and the place where federal prisoners and detained migrants are incarcerated.
However, such a movement could be a costly and complicated proposal. The prison was closed in 1963 due to the deterioration of the infrastructure and the high costs of repairing and supplying the island facility, as everything from fuel to food had to be brought in by boat.
Modernizing the facilities would require huge investments at a time when the Bureau of Prisons has been closing correctional centers due to similar infrastructure problems.
The prison, which was known as a place from which it was impossible to escape due to the strong ocean currents and the cold waters of the Pacific surrounding it, was known as “The Rock” and housed some of the country’s most famous criminals, including gangster Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.
For a long time, it has been part of cultural imagination and has been the subject of numerous films, including “The Rock”, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.
However, during the 29 years it remained in operation, 36 men made 14 separate escape attempts, according to the FBI. Almost all of them were captured or did not survive the attempt.
The fate of three particular inmates - John Anglin, his brother Clarence, and Frank Morris - is the subject of some debate and was the topic of the 1979 film “Escape from Alcatraz,” starring Clint Eastwood.
Alcatraz Island is currently an important tourist site operated by the National Park Service and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
On his return trip to the White House on Sunday night, after spending a weekend in Florida, Trump said he came up with the idea due to his frustration with the “radicalized judges” who have insisted that those being deported receive due process. Alcatraz, he assured, has long been a “symbol of law and order. You know, it has quite a history.”
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that the agency “will comply with all presidential orders.” The spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press about how practical and feasible it is to reopen Alcatraz or the agency’s role in the future of the former prison, considering the National Park Service’s control of the island.
The former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California whose district includes the island, questioned the viability of reopening the prison after so many years. “Now it is a very popular national park and a major tourist attraction. The president’s proposal is not serious,” she wrote in X.
The island serves as a true time machine to a bygone era of correctional facilities. The Bureau of Prisons currently operates 16 penitentiary centers that perform the same high-security functions as Alcatraz, including its maximum security facility in Florence, Colorado, and the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, which houses the federal death chamber.
The order comes at a time when Trump has had marked differences with the courts as part of his attempt to send gang members to a maximum security prison in El Salvador without due process. Trump has also raised the legally dubious idea of sending some federal prisoners from the United States to the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, in the Central American nation.
Trump has also ordered the opening of a detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to house up to 30,000 of what he considers the “worst foreign criminals.”
The Bureau of Prisons has faced countless crises in recent years and has come under increased scrutiny following the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in a federal jail in New York City in 2019. An investigation by AP revealed significant failures that had not been previously reported within the agency. AP’s inquiries have uncovered widespread criminal activity by employees, dozens of escapes, chronic violence, deaths, and a severe staff shortage that have hindered the response to emergencies, including assaults and suicides.
AP’s investigation also exposed rampant sexual abuse within a federal women’s prison in Dublin, California. President Joe Biden enacted a law last year that strengthens oversight of the agency after AP reports exposed many of its flaws.
At the same time, the Bureau of Prisons is operating in a state of change, with a newly installed director and a redefined mission that includes receiving thousands of detained immigrants in some of its prisons and jails as part of an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security. The agency closed several facilities last year, in part to reduce costs, but is also in the process of building a new prison in Kentucky.