President Trump called for the reopening of Alcatraz, a small federal prison on an island near San Francisco, to serve as a symbol of “Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”
“When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm,” the president wrote on his social media platform Sunday. “That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
While there are no estimates yet of the cost of reopening the facility, it’s worth noting that one of the main reasons the prison was closed by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1963 is that the facility was in poor condition and far more expensive to operate than prisons on the mainland.
“Alcatraz was nearly three times more expensive to operate than any other Federal prison,” the Bureau of Prisons website says. “The major expense was caused by the physical isolation of the island - the exact reason islands have been used as prisons throughout history. This isolation meant that everything (food, supplies, water, fuel...) had to be brought to Alcatraz by boat.”