Famous Prisons: A Brief History Of Alcatraz

Superior Essays
Though Alcatraz was a famous prison, it has an amazing story behind it. With its beautiful gardens to its famous inmates and mysteries, Alcatraz. It inspires people around the world drawing them to the famous prison. Alcatraz has a fascinating history about it’s origin words to how it became a prison. According to The Federal Bureau of Prisons, the word alcatraz comes from the spanish word “Alcatraces” and he word Alcatraz itself means “pelican” or “strange bird”. Alcatraz is the prison for the most violent or the prisoners with the highest escape risk. It was actually prefered because it's like a mini city in a prison. Prisoners have jobs and can make stuff in their free time. Plus they don’t have to share a cell with anyone. Many people …show more content…
According to History.com Some of the most famous inmates included Al “Scareface” Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, Alvin “Creepy Karpis” Karpowicz who was listed as public enemy number 1 in the 1930’s. But one of the most infamous prisoners of all has to be Robert “Birdman of Alcatraz” Stroud.
Al Capone a notorious mobster in the 1920-1930’s. He was sent to Alcatraz because the other prisons let him keep in contact with the outside world. Plus he was also known to corrupt prison officers but it all ended when he went to Alcatraz. “It looks like Alcatraz has got me licked”, Capone said. After that he was very cooperative. He even was allowed to play banjo in the Alcatraz band
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This Mystery will probably never be solved because even if they did escape they’d be dead. The story is that they went to bed and they weren’t moving in the morning and when they checked, the heads were fake and they haven’t been seen since. But many theories have been made on what happened. Some say they drowned but some say they were swept into the Pacific Ocean. In order to know what happened, they need to know how it was done. Luckily this isn’t a mystery. Frank Lee Morris was sent to Alcatraz, and immediately started to study the layout. He met with John and Clarence Anglin and started to mastermind “The Great Escape”. They took life preserves and used glue to fuse them together. Then they started to take out the vents in their cells so they can escape from the ventilation systems. It took them a few month but they got it off.. Then they made fake head so they wouldn’t be counted off from headcount at night. Then they maneuvered their way out of the prison and used their rafts which failed because they found it with the seal broken and that's the last people have heard from them. But this is the only escape where prisoners made it off the island. The plan was for them to burglarize a clothing store and escape to another country. But we don’t know if they did or not. The store that was going to be burglarized wasn’t. The only lead the had was a body floating in the river

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