Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on an island close to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, is set to reopen and expand under Donald Trump‘s direction.
President Trump said that “for too long America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat criminal offenders” in a statement posted on his Truth Social website on Sunday.
Alcatraz, formerly known as one of the harshest jails in the United States, would reopen as a “symbol of law, order, and justice,” he said.
The plan was deemed “not a serious one” by prominent Democrats. The Rock, commonly referred to as the maximum security institution, was shut down in 1963 but is still a popular tourist destination today.
As Trump wrote: “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,”
What’s Donald Trump’s purpose of reopening Alcatraz?
They would “house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders” in the penitentiary.
President Trump’s strategy of sending suspected gang members to an El Salvadorian prison has caused him to conflict with the courts. He deployed more than 200 suspected Venezuelan gang members there in March. Additionally, he has discussed sending “homegrown criminals” to jails abroad.
Originally constructed as a naval defense fort, Alcatraz was converted into a military prison at the beginning of the 20th century. In the 1930s, it was taken over by the Department of Justice, which then started accepting prisoners from the federal prison system. The infamous gangsters Al Capone, Mickey Cohen, and George “Machine Gun” Kelly were among its most well-known prisoners.
