President Donald Trump says he wants to reopen Alcatraz, California’s infamous island prison, to house the country’s “most ruthless and violent criminals.”
The prison off the coast of San Francisco has been closed for over 60 years and is now a highly visited tourist destination.
Writing on his Truth Social Platform on Sunday evening, Trump said the facility would serve as a “symbol of law, order and justice.”
“When we were a more serious country, in the past we didn’t hesitate to lock in the most dangerous criminals and be far from those who could cause harm.
The president added that he has directed the prisons, the Department of Justice, the FBI and Homeland Security to resume Alcatraz.
Critics have expressed strong doubts about the president’s plan. This is because his administrative government is trying to cut billions of dollars from the Justice Department’s budget.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, and a district that includes the island, was among those who questioned the feasibility of the plan.
“It is now a very popular national park and a major tourist attraction. The president’s proposal is not serious,” she writes in X.
It’s probably prohibitively expensive to bring the site back to a functional high-security prison. It’s not cheap to run either.
The prison was closed in 1963 due to the collapsed infrastructure and high cost of repairs and supply on boats.
The prison, which is said to be inevitable due to the strong currents surrounding it and the cold Pacific oceans, is known as the “rock” and housed some of the country’s most notorious criminals, including Gangster Al Capone and George “machine gun” Kelly.
Alcatraz is currently a major tourist destination operated by the National Park Service and is a designated national historic landmark.
A spokesman for the Prison Bureau said in a statement that the agency will “comply with all executive orders.”
