Correctional Facility Paper: Alcatraz
Elizabeth Phan Introduction to Corrections
July 20, 2017
Look out onto the San Francisco Bay and you see a big rock that is approximately 22 acres with some abandoned architecture on it. Well, that there is Alcatraz Island. Before Alcatraz became the tourist attraction that we know of today, it was used differently throughout the course of California history.
First, the light house was placed there and it was used to guide people in and out of the foggy bay for the first 125 years of its discovered life. In 1863, the ‘lower prison’ which is the first prison on Alcatraz was built. The military used it as a prison to lock up war prisoners, which were mostly people who committed treason, …show more content…
According to History.com, “The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) viewed Alcatraz as “the prison system’s prison,” a place where the most disruptive inmates could be sent to live under sparse conditions with few privileges in order to learn how to follow rules”, meaning that as a prisoner, you must have been so bad at your assigned prison that you had to get transferred to Alcatraz, so you can get straightened out. As an inmate, if you were on death row, you did your sentence at Alcatraz, then would get shipped off to San Quentin for your capital …show more content…
Of that 1,576 inmates: 8 were murdered, 5 committed suicide, and 15 died of natural causes. There were 14 attempts of escaping Alcatraz by 36 men, but 23 were caught, 6 were shot and killed, 2 drowned, and 5 went missing. The 5 that went missing were said to have either drowned or been eaten by sharks. There were no successful escapes. In March of 1963, Alcatraz officially closed as a Federal Prison. It cost too much to run due to being on an island and needing to import everything by boat. Also, because it was on an island, the buildings were slowly deteriorating from the salt water. At that time, Alcatraz was the most expensive prison being ran. It was just easier to close Alcatraz and have inmates put in different prisons for a much cheaper
Elizabeth Phan Introduction to Corrections
July 20, 2017
Look out onto the San Francisco Bay and you see a big rock that is approximately 22 acres with some abandoned architecture on it. Well, that there is Alcatraz Island. Before Alcatraz became the tourist attraction that we know of today, it was used differently throughout the course of California history.
First, the light house was placed there and it was used to guide people in and out of the foggy bay for the first 125 years of its discovered life. In 1863, the ‘lower prison’ which is the first prison on Alcatraz was built. The military used it as a prison to lock up war prisoners, which were mostly people who committed treason, …show more content…
According to History.com, “The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) viewed Alcatraz as “the prison system’s prison,” a place where the most disruptive inmates could be sent to live under sparse conditions with few privileges in order to learn how to follow rules”, meaning that as a prisoner, you must have been so bad at your assigned prison that you had to get transferred to Alcatraz, so you can get straightened out. As an inmate, if you were on death row, you did your sentence at Alcatraz, then would get shipped off to San Quentin for your capital …show more content…
Of that 1,576 inmates: 8 were murdered, 5 committed suicide, and 15 died of natural causes. There were 14 attempts of escaping Alcatraz by 36 men, but 23 were caught, 6 were shot and killed, 2 drowned, and 5 went missing. The 5 that went missing were said to have either drowned or been eaten by sharks. There were no successful escapes. In March of 1963, Alcatraz officially closed as a Federal Prison. It cost too much to run due to being on an island and needing to import everything by boat. Also, because it was on an island, the buildings were slowly deteriorating from the salt water. At that time, Alcatraz was the most expensive prison being ran. It was just easier to close Alcatraz and have inmates put in different prisons for a much cheaper