Over 60 years empty, the windswept island prison Alcatraz has stood empty. Locking up a population of humans for decades at a time is not exactly how free men should live, and once the most infamous penitentiary in the United States, The Rock was shuttered in 1963 and left behind a legacy of isolation, daring escapes, and a haunting place in American culture. Former President Donald Trump now marches behind him to bring it roaring back — bigger than ever.
Trump Sunday night on Truth Social dropped the most recent element of his plan, a full blowout and enlargement of Alcatraz to home the nation’s most ruthless and vicious Offenders. With his trademark tough-on-crime rhetoric driving home a point about how things used to be on the Alcatraz and how they are not on the justice system of today, his remarks.
Trump wrote that: “America has long been beset by vicious, violent and repeat Criminal Offenders.” “Back when this Nation was more serious, we didn’t wince from locking up the worst of the bad and putting them as far from anyone that they would do them harm.”
Trump on Sunday described today’s practice of incarceration as ‘weak’ and ‘chaotic,’ and as such, he has ordered that the Alcatraz, which sits off the California coast, be reopened and enlarged to one day resemble it as it did when it was Arizona’s most violent prison before it closed in 2009.
His statement didn’t go into detail on specifics of how the island will be expanded but the language sounded like a full overhaul of the island’s existing infrastructure. The vision is one of a top security complex that could hold the highest federal inmates, re-offending violent criminals and possibly even immigration detainees.
Part of what he called a “broad strategy” to change the way the U.S. penal system and deportation protocols operate, alienated by what he said were “radicalized judges” determined to apply the letter of the law, the plan is the latest effort from the Republican to take on the liberal wing of the country’s judiciary.
The island, however, is currently no place for Trump’s proposal. These days Alcatraz has long been converted from a feared prison to a top San Francisco tourist attraction. More than 1.5 million visitors a year descend on its abandoned cell blocks to take photos, accept guided tours and hear tales of legendary inmates like Al Capone and among other things, the three escapees who disappeared into the night during the 1962 breakout.
And that same escape helped ensure the fate of the facility. Battened by collapsed infrastructure and rising expenditures, the federal government shut down Alcatraz on March 21, 1963. It has since turned into a National Park Service, monument rather than a correctional facility for the island.
Sharp and swift was the response to Trump’s announcement.
The Bureau of Prisons said only that it would comply with all Presidential Orders, and a spokesperson for the agency issued a measured response. However, asked by the Associated Press whether it was logistically or legally feasible for a prison to reopen on Alcatraz, the only thing they were willing to say was Undefined.
ButNAPOLEON Trump dismissed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, flatly.
Now it is a very popular national park and big tourist spot, Pelosi wrote on X (formerly Twitter). According to Mike Senken, “The President’s proposal is not a serious one.”
They have also raised red flags to legal experts. In order to convert a national historic site back to a functioning prison, there would have to be a radical overhaul of federal policy, give and take of Congress and even potentially an extended legal battle about land use, environmental impact and human rights.
Trump’s Alcatraz proposal is the latest in a rising crescendo of words about crime and the enforcement of immigration. In the past weeks he announced he would transfer accused gang members to a maximum security prison in El Salvador without ever seeing U.S. courts. In addition, he has also suggested the building of a new detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to house up to 30,000 of what he called ‘criminal aliens.’
Yet these are controversial ideas that reflect an emphatic attempt to reimport the ‘law and order’ themes that steered his original campaign in 2016, only more so.
Trump seems to be pushing boundaries of presidential authority and public patience with the iconics, like Alcatraz, turned into political tchotchkes in the run-up to control and deterrence. Still, it is up to whether his proposal will find traction; the debate is well underway over the short of America’s balance of justice, security and civil liberties.
Alcatraz was never a prison, it was a symbol. For others, it is the strength of the American justice system. To others, it is cruel, isolation, and the loss of mass incarceration.
Returning to reopen and expand it in 2025 could be seen as brave step back in to deterrence, or teaching nightmare to be best left behind.
The island is still quiet, only the footsteps of tourists can be heard and the stories of ghosts. However, this has caught the eye of the country with this tweet, the question is: Is Alcatraz a smart move for restoring law and order or anachronistic jewel of a long gone era?
