https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...az-2025-05-04/
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/05/us/tr...on-history-hnk
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he was directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons to rebuild and reopen the infamous Alcatraz prison in the San Francisco Bay to "house America?s most ruthless and violent Offenders."
"REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!" he posted on the Truth Social platform. "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."
For a guy that ran and won on cutting federal spending, this seems like an incredibly wasteful idea. Turning the National Park Service attraction back into an actual functioning prison is going to cost a lot more than expanding Supermax in Florence or even building a new prison someplace else.
The entire facility would likely need to be knocked down and rebuilt. That would include all the environmental impact studies in California is famous for. Just planning and permitting would likely take 5 to 10 years. Add to that union labor, material costs in the Bay Area, and legal challenges, and you're talking billions and probably multiple decades to see it through.
One of the reasons it was shut down was because of the expensive logistics of maintaining it. That can only have increased in the time since it closed.
Hopefully, this is just another goofball idea Trump tosses out there to make leftist's heads spin but with this guy, you never know.
He has no problem spending our money.