Trump vows to turn beloved national park site into a prison

The president called it a 'symbol of law, order, and justice.'

May 5, 2025 - 15:15

Trump vows to turn beloved national park site into a prison

While it still carries the reputation of America's most secure and toughest prison, Alcatraz Penitentiary has not held any prisoners since 1963 when then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy closed it down over the high cost of maintenance.

Following a renovation taking place over the next decade, Alcatraz reopened as a tourist attraction in 1973 and has since become an icon of the San Francisco visiting experience.

With the island located approximately one mile into the waters — its distance from land was what made Alcatraz particularly difficult to escape — of the San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz is now managed by the National Park Service (NPS) and sees approximately 1.4 million visitors come by ferry from Pier 33 in a given year.

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'A symbol of law, order and justice': Trump vows to reopen Alcatraz amid criticism around logistics

On the night of May 4, President Donald Trump put out a Truth Social post announcing that he was directing several government agencies to reopen Alcatraz as a place to hold prisoners.

"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," Trump wrote in the post. "That's the way it's supposed to be."

The proposal immediately received criticism from both Californian and federal officials over the logistics — during the 29 years that Alcatraz was open, the cost of transporting supplies and finding the staff to run a prison on an island ended up being so prohibitive that even politicians with a "law and justice" focus did not oppose Kennedy's order to shut it down.

Historical data from 1963 show that the crumbling prison structure would have cost at least $3 to $5 million to restore, while daily operations were costing taxpayers more than three times what any other prison in the country did.

For the last 60 years, Alcatraz has been operated by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and become a highly profitable tourist attraction for San Francisco.

"Reopening and rebuilding Alcatraz as a prison would cost approximately $235-370 million upfront and $40–60 million annually to operate. Where you at @DOGE?" one policy analyst wrote on social media platform X in a reference to the Elon Musk-led agency's claims to cut government waste by cutting jobs and slashing agencies.

Alcatraz is a popular tourist attraction in San Francisco.
Image source: Shutterstock

'Water, food, fuel must be barged in'

Political commentator Brian Krassenstein called Trump's plan to reopen Alcatraz "the dumbest proposal [he's] heard," as even the most conservative estimates for an initial repair to get Alcatraz facilities to a state that would make it possible to house prisoners in the 21st century would total as much as $250 million.

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"Everything — water, food, fuel — must be barged in, and raw sewage barged out," Krassenstein wrote. "That pushes the annual budget to 3× a comparable mainland prison, roughly $70-75M every single year."

The agencies that Trump instructed to "reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders" include the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.