The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary or United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island was a maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles off the coast of San Francisco, California, United States, the site of a fort since the 1850s; the main prison building was built in 1910–1912 as a United States Army military prison.
The United States Department of Justice acquired the United States Disciplinary Barracks, Pacific Branch, on Alcatraz on 12 October 1933. The island became adapted and used as a prison of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in August 1934 after the buildings were modernized and security increased. Given this high security and the island’s location in the cold waters and strong currents of San Francisco Bay, prison operators believed Alcatraz to be escape-proof and America’s strongest prison.
The three-story cellhouse included the four main cell blocks – A-block through D-block, the warden’s office, visitation room, the library, and the barber shop. The prison cells typically measured 9 feet by 5 feet and 7 feet high. The cells were primitive and lacked privacy. They were furnished with a bed, desk, washbasin, a toilet on the back wall, and few items other than a blanket. African Americans were segregated from other inmates in cell designation due to racism during the Jim Crow-era. D-Block housed the worst inmates, and six cells at its end were designated "The Hole". Prisoners with behavioral problems were sent to these for periods of often brutal punishment. The dining hall and kitchen extended from the main building. Prisoners and staff ate three meals a day together. The Alcatraz Hospital was located above the dining hall.
Prison corridors were named after major U.S. streets, such as Broadway and Michigan Avenue, of New York and Chicago, respectively. Working at the prison was considered a privilege for inmates. Those who earned privileges were employed in the Model Industries Building and New Industries Building during the day, actively involved in providing for the military in jobs such as sewing and woodwork, and performing various maintenance and laundry chores.
After being closed in 1963 as a prison, today Alcatraz is operated as a public museum. It is one of San Francisco’s major tourist attractions, attracting some 1.5 million visitors annually. Now operated by the National Park Service’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the former prison is being restored and maintained.
The main cellhouse was built incorporating some parts of Fort Alcatraz’s citadel, a partially fortified barracks from 1859 that had come to be used as a jail. A new cellhouse was built from 1910 to 1912 on a budget of $250,000 (approximately $6,800,000 in 2021). Upon completion, the 500 feet (150 m) long concrete building was reputedly the longest concrete building in the world at the time. This building was modernized in 1933 and 1934 and became the main cellhouse of the federal penitentiary. The building closed in 1963.
When the new concrete prison was built, many materials were reused in its construction. Iron staircases in the interior and the cellhouse door near the barber’s shop at the end of A-block were retained from the old citadel and massive granite blocks originally used as gun mounts were reused as the wharf’s bulkheads and retaining walls. Many of the old cell bars were used to reinforce the walls, causing structural problems later due to the fact that many placed near the edge were subject to erosion from the salt air and wind over the years.
After the United States Army’s use of the island for over 80 years, it was transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which hoped an escape-proof jail would help break the crime wave of the 1920s and 1930s. The Department of Justice acquired the Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz on 12 October 1933, and it became a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in August 1934. $260,000 was spent to modernize and improve it from January 1934. George Hess of the United States Public Health Service was appointed chief medical officer and Edward W. Twitchell became a consultant in psychiatry for Alcatraz in January 1934.
The hospital was checked by three officials from the Marine Hospital of San Francisco. The Bureau of Prisons personnel arrived on Alcatraz in early February; among them was acting chief clerk Loring O. Mills. In April 1934, the old material was removed from the prison; holes were cut in the concrete and 269 cell fronts were installed, built using four carloads of steel ordered from the Stewart Iron Works.
Two of four new stairways were built, as were 12 doors to the utility corridors and gratings at the top of the cells. On 26 April, a small accidental fire broke out on the roof and an electrician injured his foot by dropping a manhole cover on it. The Anchor Post Fence Company added fencing around Alcatraz and the Enterprise Electric Works added emergency lighting in the morgue and switchboard operations.
In June 1934, the Teletouch Corporation of New York began the installation of an "electro-magnetic gun or metal detecting system" at Alcatraz; detectors were added on the wharf, at the front entrance into the cellblock, and at the rear entrance gate. The correctional officers were instructed on how to operate the new locking devices in July 1934, and both the United States Coast Guard and the San Francisco Police Department tested the new radio equipment. Final checks and assessments were made on the first two days of August.
Alcatraz was intended for prisoners who continuously caused trouble at other federal prisons. It would be a "last resort prison", to hold the worst of the worst who had no hope of rehabilitation.[9][10] On 11 August 1934, the first batch of 137 prisoners arrived at Alcatraz from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, having traveled by rail to Santa Venetia, California. Before being escorted to Alcatraz, they were handcuffed in high-security coaches and guarded by some 60 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents, U.S. Marshals, and railway security officials. Most of the prisoners were notorious bank robbers, counterfeiters, or murderers.
Among the first inmates were also 14 men from McNeil Island, Washington. On 22 August 1934, 43 prisoners arrived from Atlanta Penitentiary and 10 from North Eastern Penitentiary, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.[8] On 1 September, one prisoner arrived from Washington Asylum and Jail and seven from the District of Columbia Reformatory in Virginia, and on 4 September, another batch of 103 prisoners arrived by train from Leavenworth. Prisoners continued to arrive, mainly from Leavenworth and Atlanta, into 1935 and by 30 June 1935, the penitentiary’s first anniversary, it had a population of 242 prisoners, although some inmates such as Verrill Rapp had already been transferred from Alcatraz some months earlier.
On Alcatraz’s first anniversary, the Bureau of Prisons wrote, "The establishment of this institution not only provided a secure place for the detention of the more difficult type of criminal but has had a good effect upon discipline in our other penitentiaries also. No serious disturbance of any kind has been reported during the year." The metal detectors often overheated and had to be turned off. After the Teletouch Corporation failed to address the problem, their contract was terminated in 1937 and they were charged over $200 for three new detectors supplied by Federal Laboratories.
On 10 January 1935, a severe storm caused a landslide on Alcatraz, causing the Model Industries Building to slide.[8] This prompted a series of changes to the structures on the island. A riprap was built around the Model Industries Building, it was strengthened, and a guard tower added to the roof in June 1936. That same month, the barracks building was remodeled into 11 new apartments and nine single rooms for bachelors; by this time there were 52 families living on Alcatraz, including 126 women and children. The problems with the Model Industries Building and continuing utility problems with some of the old buildings and systems led to extensive updates in 1937, including new tool-proof grills on the ventilators of the cell house roof, two new boilers installed in the power house, and a new pump for salt water sanitation and guardrails added to stairways.
In 1939–40, a $1.1 million redevelopment was begun, including construction of the New Industries Building, a complete overhaul of the power house with a new diesel engine, the building of a new water tower to solve the water storage problem, new apartment blocks for officers, improvements to the dock, and the conversion of D-block into isolation cells. The changes were completed in July 1941. The workshops of the New Industries Building became highly productive, making Army uniforms, cargo nets, and other items in high demand during World War II. In June 1945, it was reported that the federal penitentiaries had made 60,000 nets.
Alcatraz gained notoriety from its inception as the toughest prison in America, considered by many the world’s most fearsome prison of the day. Former prisoners reported brutality and inhumane conditions which severely tested their sanity. Ed Wutke was the first prisoner to commit suicide in Alcatraz. Rufe Persful chopped off his fingers after grabbing an axe from the firetruck, begging another inmate to do the same to his other hand.
One writer described Alcatraz as "the great garbage can of San Francisco Bay, into which every federal prison dumped its most rotten apples". In 1939, the new U.S. Attorney General, Frank Murphy, attacked the penitentiary, saying, "The whole institution is conductive to psychology that builds up a sinister ambitious attitude among prisoners."
The prison’s reputation was not helped by the arrival of more of America’s most dangerous felons, including Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz", in 1942. He entered the prison system at age 19, and never left, spending 17 years at Alcatraz. Stroud killed a guard, tangled with other inmates and spent 42 of his 54 years in prison in solitary confinement. Despite its reputation, with many former inmates calling it "Hellcatraz", some prisoners reported that the living conditions there were much better than most other prisons in the country, especially the food, and many volunteered to come to Alcatraz.
On 3 December 1940, Henri Young murdered fellow inmate Rufus McCain. Running downstairs from the furniture shop to the tailor’s shop where McCain worked, Young violently stabbed McCain in the neck; McCain died five hours later. Young had been sent to Alcatraz for murder in 1933, and was later involved in an escape attempt during which gangster Doc Barker was shot to death. He spent nearly 22 months in solitary confinement as a result, but was eventually permitted to work in the furniture shop. Young went to trial in 1941, with his attorneys claiming that their client could not be held responsible for the murder, since he had allegedly been subjected to "cruel and unusual punishment" by prison guards prior to the act. The trial brought Alcatraz into further disrepute. Ultimately, Young was convicted of manslaughter and his prison sentence was only extended by a few years.
By the 1950s, conditions at Alcatraz had improved, and inmates were gradually permitted more privileges, such as playing musical instruments, watching movies on weekends, painting, and radio use; the strict code of silence became more relaxed, and prisoners were permitted to talk quietly. However, it was by far the most expensive prison in the United States, and many still perceived it as America’s most extreme jail. In his annual report for 1952, Bureau of Prisons director James V. Bennett called for a more centralized institution to replace Alcatraz.
A 1959 report indicated that the facility was over three times more expensive to run than the average American prison; $10 per prisoner per day compared to $3 in most other prisons. The problem was made worse by the buildings’ structural deterioration from exposure to salt spray, which would require $5 million to fix. Major repairs began in 1958, but by 1961 engineers considered the prison a lost cause. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy submitted plans for a new maximum-security institution at Marion, Illinois.
The June 1962 escape from Alcatraz led to acrimonious investigations. Combined with the major structural problems and expensive operation, this led to its closure on 21 March 1963. The final Bureau of Prisons report said of Alcatraz: "The institution served an important purpose in taking the strain off the older and greatly overcrowded institutions in Atlanta, Leavenworth and McNeil Island since it enabled us to move to the smaller, closely guarded institution for the escape artists, the big-time racketeers, the inveterate connivers and those who needed protection from other groups."
Today a museum and one of San Francisco’s major tourist attractions, Alcatraz drew some 1.5 million visitors annually (2010). Visitors arrive by boat and are given a tour of the cellhouse and island, and a slide show and audio narration with anecdotes from former inmates, guards and rangers on Alcatraz. The atmosphere of the former penitentiary is still considered to be "eerie", "ghostly" and "chilling". Protected by the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places, the salt-damaged buildings of the former prison are now being restored and maintained.
Posted by andrea.guagni 1,4 Million on 2022-01-07 13:26:31
Tagged: , penitentiary , california , alcatraz , heritage
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