PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP announced Sunday he is directing federal authorities to reopen the famous prison at Alcatraz Island off the coast of San Francisco that has been shuttered for more than 60 years.
Trump, posting on the social media platform he founded, Truth Social, said he is “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.”
U.S. Penitentiary Alcatraz closed in 1963 after opening 29 years earlier on the island in San Francisco Bay. Known as “The Rock,” and made famous to future generations by a 1996 movie with the same name, some of the famous criminals of their time like Al Capone were housed there during the prison’s operation.
After its closure and a period of occupation by American Indians, Alcatraz has since turned into a tourist attraction with more than a million visitors a year to the public museum about the history of the island and its prison, according to the National Park Service.
Trump did not get into specifics in his social media post about how and when Alcatraz can host prisoners again rather than tourists, but said it “will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons, one of the agencies Trump said he is directing to reopen Alcatraz, notes on its website that the closure 60-plus years ago was because of high costs.
Alcatraz’s daily costs were nearly three times as much as any other federal prison because of the necessity to ship everything there by boat, including nearly a million gallons of water barged to the island each week, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, was among the critics of Trump’s proposal Sunday.
Wiener said the proposal is “absurd on its face. This major tourist attraction generates significant revenue for the federal government and supports many jobs.”
He said, “If Trump is serious about doing this, it’s just one more step in his dismantling of democracy — a domestic gulag right in the middle of San Francisco Bay.”
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