US President Donald Trump has said he wants to reopen Alcatraz — an infamous island prison in California — to house the country’s “most ruthless and violent offenders”.
The jail, which is located off San Francisco, has been shut for more than 60 years and is now a much-visited tourist site.
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 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. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” he wrote.
The president added that he was directing the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, the FBI and Homeland Security to reopen Alcatraz.
Critics have expressed strong doubts about the president’s plan, which comes as his administration administration looks to cut billions of dollars from the Department of Justice’s budget.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat whose district includes the island, was among those who questioned the feasibility of the plan.
“It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction. The president’s proposal is not a serious one,” she wrote on X.
Converting the site back into a functioning high-security prison would likely be prohibitively expensive. It would also not be cheap to run.
The prison was closed in 1963 due to crumbling infrastructure and the high costs of repairing and supplying it by boat.
The prison — said to be inescapable due to the strong ocean currents and cold Pacific waters that surround it — was known as “the Rock” and housed some of the nation’s most notorious criminals, including gangster Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.
Alcatraz Island is now a major tourist site that is operated by the National Park Service and is a designated National Historic Landmark.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that the agency “will comply with all Presidential Orders”.
