PA MediaUS President Donald Trump says he is directing his government to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on a California island.
In a message on his Truth Social site on Sunday evening, Mr Trump wrote: “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.
“When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
PA Media“That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
He added: “The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”
Returning to the White House on Sunday night after a weekend in Florida, the president said he had come up with the idea because of frustrations with “radicalised judges” who have insisted those being deported receive due process.
Alcatraz, he said, has long been a “symbol of law and order. You know, it’s got quite a history”.
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat whose district includes the island, questioned the feasibility of reopening the prison after so many years.
“It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction. The President’s proposal is not a serious one,” she wrote on X.
The San Francisco prison — infamously inescapable due to the strong ocean currents and cold Pacific waters which surround it — was known as The Rock and housed some of the nation’s most notorious criminals, including gangster Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.
PA MediaIt has long been part of the cultural imagination and has been the subject of numerous movies, including The Rock starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.
In the 29 years it was open, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes, according to the FBI. Nearly all were caught or did not survive the attempt.
The fate of three particular inmates — John Anglin, his brother Clarence and Frank Morris — is of some debate and was dramatised in the 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood.
Alcatraz Island is now a major tourist site that is operated by the National Park Service and is a designated National Historic Landmark.
The closure of the federal prison in 1963 was attributed to crumbling infrastructure and the high costs of repairing and supplying the island facility, because everything from fuel to food had to be brought by boat.
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 answer questions from The Associated Press regarding the practicality and feasibility of reopening Alcatraz or the agency’s role in the future of the former prison, given the National Park Service’s control of the island.
The Bureau of Prisons has 16 penitentiaries performing the same high-security functions as Alcatraz, including its maximum-security facility in Florence, Colorado, and the US penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, which is home to the federal death chamber.
The order comes as Mr Trump has been clashing with the courts as he tries to send accused gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador, without due process.
The president has also directed the opening of a detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold up to 30,000 of what he has labelled the “worst criminal aliens”.
The Bureau of Prisons has faced myriad crises in recent years and has been subjected to increased scrutiny after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide at a federal jail in New York City in 2019.
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