Alcatraz prison: Trump reopens offshore jail closed 60 years ago to 'lock up most dangerous criminals'

President Donald Trump has directed his administration to revive and expand Alcatraz, an infamous old prison on a difficult-to-access California island that has been abandoned for nearly 60 years.

In a post on his Truth Social site Sunday evening, Trump wrote that, “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. 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. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

“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,” he wrote, adding: “The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”

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The jail, notably impenetrable owing to the powerful ocean currents and chilly Pacific waters that surround it, was known as “The Rock” and imprisoned some of the country’s most renowned offenders, including mobster Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.

It has long been a part of the cultural imagination, having been the subject of countless films, notably “The Rock” with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.

Despite this, the FBI reports that 36 men tried 14 distinct escapes throughout its 29-year operation.  Almost everyone was apprehended or killed during the attempt.

The fate of three specific convicts — John Anglin, his brother Clarence, and Frank Morris — is debatable, and it was dramatised in Clint Eastwood’s 1979 film “Escape from Alcatraz”.

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Alcatraz Island is now a major tourist site that is operated by the National Parks Service and is a designated National Historic Landmark.

The closure of the federal prison in 1963 was attributed to crumbling infrastructure and the high costs of repairing and supplying the island facility, because everything from fuel to food had to be brought by boat.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that the agency “will comply with all Presidential Orders.” The spokesperson did not immediately answer questions from The Associated Press regarding the practicality and feasibility of reopening Alcatraz or the agency’s role in the future of the former prison, given the National Park Service’s control of the island.

The island serves as a veritable time machine to a bygone era of corrections. The Bureau of Prisons currently has 16 penitentiaries performing the same high-security functions as Alcatraz, including its maximum security facility in Florence, Colorado, and the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, which is home to the federal death chamber.

The order comes as Trump has been clashing with the courts as he tries to send accused gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process. Trump has also directed the opening of a detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold up to 30,000 of what he has labelled the “worst criminal aliens.”

The Bureau of Prisons has faced myriad crises in recent years and has been subjected to increased scrutiny after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide at a federal jail in New York City in 2019.