Updated May 5, 2025 at 3:21 PM MDT
President Trump says he is ordering federal agencies to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz — the notorious maximum security prison that closed more than 60 years ago.
"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," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The historic former U.S. Penitentiary Alcatraz, opened in 1934, is widely known as The Rock. Its buildings dominate the craggy landscape of Alcatraz Island, which lies about 1.5 miles north of San Francisco's famed Fisherman's Wharf.
Alcatraz once housed dangerous criminals such as the infamous mobster Al Capone, under an incarceration strategy that sought to concentrate difficult prisoners in one facility, segregating them from less dangerous inmates in the prison system.
Trump's message suggests he wants to restore Alcatraz to its original dual purpose. The twin goals for building the original prison, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, were "to deal with the most incorrigible inmates in Federal prisons, and to show the law-abiding public that the Federal Government was serious" about stopping rampant crime in the 1920s and 1930s."
"REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!" the president said on Truth Social. He added later in his message, "The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE."
Trump did not provide details about a timeline for reopening the prison. When asked for comment, the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service referred NPR to the president's statement.
Asked on Monday about his idea to reopen Alcatraz, Trump replied, "I guess I was supposed to be a movie maker," noting the prison's long history.
"It represents something very strong, very powerful, in terms of law and order," Trump said, adding that no one ever successfully escaped from the prison.
High costs and other obstacles could complicate plan
Enacting Trump's proposal would come with a steep price tag, both for constructing and operating a new prison facility on an island whose most plentiful natural resource is sandstone.
Alcatraz was shuttered "because the institution was too expensive to continue operating," according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It said operating the island prison was nearly three times more expensive than any other federal prison at the time.
"This isolation meant that everything (food, supplies, water, fuel...) had to be brought to Alcatraz by boat," the bureau says. "For example, the island had no source of fresh water, so nearly one million gallons of water had to be barged to the island each week."
If the Trump administration tries to rebuild a prison on the island, historian Jolene Babyak says it will need to solve long-running infrastructure challenges.
"My reaction was two words: water and sewage," she says, adding, "Those are two reasons why it would be impractical" to restore the facility as a working prison.
"All of the sewage in those days was dumped in the bay," she says of the years when hundreds of inmates and staff lived on the island. "So that is a problem."
Alcatraz's legend outgrew its small size
In movies and on TV, Alcatraz gained a mythical air. It was depicted as being full of the country's worst criminals, offering harsh conditions and virtually no hope of escape, surrounded by cold and treacherous waters. The reality is more complex.
For one thing, Alcatraz was pretty small, averaging 260 to 275 inmates — less than 1% of the total federal prison population at the time, according to the prisons bureau. And while it was designed around strict rules, the penitentiary's reputation was more nuanced.
"Many prisoners actually considered the living conditions (for instance, always one man to a cell) at Alcatraz to be better than other Federal prisons, and several inmates actually requested a transfer to Alcatraz," the bureau states.
The prison's staff lived on the island with their families, and children were ferried to San Francisco on school days, according to the National Park Service.
Those children included Babyak, who grew up to become a historian studying the island prison where she once lived due to her father's work as an administrator there.
"The food was excellent. Everybody bragged about it," she tells NPR, noting that an early warden at the prison had prioritized using the promise of good food as a way to motivate inmates to follow the rules.
The penitentiary did hold infamous criminals such as Capone; George "Machine Gun" Kelly; and Alvin Karpis and Arthur "Doc" Barker. But while some inmates were sent to Alcatraz because they were considered dangerous and/or escape risks, others spent shorter stints at the highly structured prison.
"Once prison officials felt a man no longer posed a threat and could follow the rules (usually after an average of five years on Alcatraz)," the prisons bureau says, "he could then be transferred back to another Federal prison to finish his sentence and be released."
Alcatraz is now a popular park site
Then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy closed the federal penitentiary in 1963.
Alcatraz is currently a museum administered by the National Park Service, as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area since 1972. Placing the prison in historical context, the NPS says it "represents the federal government's response to post-Prohibition, post-Depression America. Both the institution and the men confined within its walls reflect our society during this era."
The original impetus for creating the Alcatraz prison, the park service says, lay in the U.S. government's desire to create a "high-profile prison that represented the Justice Department's response to fears around public safety and organized crime."
For federal prison officials, Alcatraz "served as an experiment" in handling problematic inmates, the park service says. It adds, "The model they developed on Alcatraz would later serve as a blueprint for the high security federal prison located in Marion, Illinois."
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has unveiled a string of high-profile initiatives that he says will protect public safety and also crack down on unlawful immigration. They include deporting immigrants — and potentially, U.S. citizens — to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
Alcatraz was initially viewed as a defense outpost in San Francisco Bay when it was brought under federal control by President Millard Fillmore in 1850, according to the NPS.
But the U.S. soon began using the island as a prison.
Groups housed there include: captured Confederates in the 1860s; members of the Hopi Tribe in the 1890s; and prisoners from the 1898 Spanish-American War.
In the early 1900s, it became the site of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks for the U.S. Army. In 1933, "the island was transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice for use by the Federal Bureau of Prisons," according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Alcatraz Island is now a popular National Park Service site that's been open to the public since 1973.
NPR's Scott Neuman contributed to this report.
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