President Trump’s plan to reopen Alcatraz Island as a federal prison raises more questions than answers for a beloved San Francisco attraction.
The big picture: Alcatraz housed prisoners, including the infamous Al Capone, before the federal government closed it in 1963 due to expensive operating costs.
- Now a museum managed by the National Parks Service, it generates about $60 million in annual revenue while drawing over 1.6 million visitors a year.
Driving the news: Trump said Sunday on Truth Social that he is directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) to reopen “a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
- “For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering,” he said.
- He later told reporters Sunday that Alcatraz is “a symbol of law and order.”
- FBOP will “comply with all Presidential Orders,” spokesperson Randilee Giamusso told Axios via email.
Yes, but: Not everyone is onboard.
- “Trump’s edict … is absurd on its face,” state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said in a statement. “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.”
- Alcatraz is a “very popular national park, … The President’s proposal is not a serious one,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on X.
Friction point: The former prison’s crumbling infrastructure poses a huge barrier to any plans to reopen it for incarceration, Alcatraz historian Jolene Babyak tells Axios.
- “We’re three miles from the Pacific Ocean and the winds just whip in there,” Babyak said. “When you get a crack in the concrete, the moisture gets in there, and it rusts out the rebar. And so you have a facility that has always been crumbling from the inside.”
Zoom in: A significant chunk of the money generated from Alcatraz visitors goes to boating companies that serve the isolated site, according to Babyak.
- “There is no water on the island, so … you have to have every drop of water and all the food brought over in a very expensive city,” said Babyak, who lived on Alcatraz as a child.
- Sewage from the island was dumped in the bay back in the day, but that’s no longer allowed under environmental regulations and would add to transport costs, she noted.
- “They used to say that it cost more money to put men in Alcatraz than it did to house them at the Waldorf Astoria, that big hotel in New York,” Babyak said. “So you can imagine what the cost would be today.”
Between the lines: Since Alcatraz is a federal property, it’s unclear what avenues San Francisco could take to counter Trump’s plan.
- The mayor’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
Catch up quick: Alcatraz Island was originally the location for a military fort in the 19th century. The “maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary” opened on the island in 1934, per FBOP.
- No successful escapes were recorded in its 29 years of operation, though the FBOP notes five prisoners were listed as “missing and presumed drowned.”
- It also served as the site for a 19-month-long protest in which Indigenous people called for the U.S. to honor long-standing agreements with tribes.
