This week, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi visited the infamous former Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay. The prison has been a tourist attraction for decades, but since taking office, President Trump has made no secret of his intention to want to make the facility a federal penitentiary again.
Bondi visited Alcatraz, currently part of the National Park Service, along with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who arrived aboard a Coast Guard ship. They were joined by a team of administrative officials and members of the Secret Service, who surveyed the bay’s dilapidated and aging buildings, many of which date back to the late 19th century.
“A great morning at Alcatraz”, the Attorney General tweeted a few hours later, “Under President Trump, we are Making America Safe Again”. “In POTUS’ America, law and order will be fully enforced, and today’s visit to Alcatraz marked a powerful step toward ensuring dangerous criminals are held accountable and Americans remain safe”, Burgum added.
A Justice Department spokesman said Bondi and Burgum were at Alcatraz for a briefing on the facility and the surrounding island. They were also instructing staff to work together on the planning needed to renovate and reopen the facility.
“Alcatraz could hold the worst of the worst. It could hold middle-class violent prisoners, it could hold illegal aliens, it could hold anything,” Bondi explained to Fox News microphones. “This is a terrific facility, needs a lot of work, but no one has been known to escape from Alcatraz and survive.”
In May, President Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that he would instruct the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security to “reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
Following the announcement, Bureau of Prisons director William K. Marshall III said in a memo that his agency would “vigorously pursue all avenues to support and implement the President’s agenda.”
The former fortress was converted into a federal penitentiary in 1934, and over the years has housed some of the country’s most notorious criminals, such as Al Capone and “Machine Gun” Kelly.
The prison was said to be escape-proof due to the bay’s currents and icy surrounding waters. The Bureau of Prisons says that of the 36 men involved in 14 different escape attempts, 23 were caught, six were killed and two drowned.
The penitentiary was closed in 1963 because of high operating costs and the deterioration of its facilities. In 1972, Alcatraz was designated part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, under the control of the National Park Service, and the following year it was opened to the public as a historic site and tourist attraction.
