Alcatraz: Trump wants $152m to reopen jail as ‘state-of-the-art prison’
Donald Trump has asked for $152m (£115m) to reopen the former Alcatraz jail so it can become a “state-of-the-art” prison.
The president’s plea for the money was included in a proposed budget plan released by the White House to fund the US federal government for the 2027 financial year.
Such spending requests are normally seen as suggestions by Congress.
Alcatraz Island is in San Francisco Bay, close to the Golden Gate Bridge. File pic: AP
A building on Alcatraz Island. Pic: AP
The Federal Bureau of Prisons would use the investment to cover the first-year costs of rebuilding Alcatraz into “a state-of-the-art secure prison facility”, the plan said.
The jail, on an island in San Francisco Bay in northern California, closed in 1963, and was opened to the public in 1973 as part of the US National Park Service.
Last May, Mr Trump said in a social media post that he had told the bureau, along with the US Department of Justice and other agencies to “reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz, to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders”.
It would “serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice”, in a country that had been “plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat criminal offenders, the dregs of society”, he wrote.
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, which opened in 1934, had been billed as the most secure prison in the US, given the island location, frigid waters and strong currents.
Visitors in the main cell house in 2021. File pic: AP
Authorities said escape was impossible, but in the 29 years it was open, 36 men made 14 separate attempts, according to the FBI.
No successful escapes were ever officially recorded, though five prisoners are listed as “missing and presumed drowned”.
Clint Eastwood in Escape From Alcatraz.
Pic: Paramount/Malpaso/Kobal/Shutterstock
The story of three of those inmates was turned into the highly successful 1979 film, Escape From Alcatraz, starring Clint Eastwood.
Alcatraz Island was also the setting for the 1996 movie, The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.
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Gangsters Al Capone, George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly and James ‘Whitey’ Bulger are among its best-known former inmates.
It has since become a major tourist site, attracting more than a million visitors a year, according to its website.