President Donald Trump has announced that he is ordering the reopening of Alcatraz, a prison that was once notorious for its security. The facility, which was closed in the 1960s after being deemed too costly, has occupied popular culture for decades, but the task of reopening it would be expensive.
Trump posted Sunday on his Truth Social platform that he was issuing an executive order to reopen Alcatraz.
Trump announces plan to reopen, expand Alcatraz
“For too long,” the president said in his post, “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.” Trump went on to claim that “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.” Based on these claims about crime, Trump said that he was ordering a number of government agencies, including the Bureau of Prisons, Justice Department, FBI and Department of Homeland Security, to “reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders” and to “serve as a symbol of Law, Order and JUSTICE.”
The notorious prison, closed in the 1960s, lives on in pop culture
Alcatraz was a maximum-security prison opened in 1934 on Alcatraz Island, which is about a mile off the coast of San Francisco. From its inception, it was meant to house dangerous criminals and to “show the law-abiding public that the Federal Government was serious about stopping the rampant crime of the 1920s and 1930s,” according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The prison, which typically housed around 270 inmates at a given time, was largely used for prisoners who broke the rules at other facilities, though the notorious Al Capone also did time there. The prison gained a reputation for the difficulty of escaping; of the 36 men believed to have attempted to escape over the years, 31 were either captured, killed or drowned. The prison was closed in 1963, having been deemed too expensive to keep open. A group of Native American activists later occupied the island for over 19 months beginning in 1969, asserting that it as abandoned federal land that they had a right to claim under an 1868 treaty, per History.com. During its time as a prison and for decades after, Alcatraz has been featured in pop culture many times, including in movies such as Birdman of Alcatraz, Point Blank, The Rock and X-Men: The Last Stand.
High price tag for reopening Alcatraz
While Trump referenced the symbolic nature of Alcatraz as a motive for reopening it, experts have called into question the practicality of this plan. One estimate states that it would take $53 million just to make the repairs necessary to restore it to a prison, The Washington Post reported. This cost is in addition to the unknown cost of updating the facility’s infrastructure and the operating expenses of running the offshore prison, including shipping in all food and supplies and generating electricity on the island. The plan to reopen Alcatraz prison would also create significant costs in lost revenue. Alcatraz currently operates as a popular tourist destination run by the National Park Service, attracting 1.6 million visitors and $60 million in revenue annually, USA Today reported. When President Ronald Reagan considered using Alcatraz to detain Cuban refugees in 1981, the administration ultimately dismissed the idea based on the expense and the popularity of the site with tourists.
For now, it is unclear what will become of the president’s plan to reopen Alcatraz. Trump himself told reporters Sunday that this was “just an idea I’ve had,” while former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., dismissed the idea, saying that “the President’s proposal is not a serious one.” Nonetheless, with Trump paying other countries to house detainees and going so far as to suggest deporting Americans to foreign prisons, the president may very well attempt to go through with his plan to restore and expand Alcatraz.
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