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United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, also known simply as Alcatraz (English: / ˈ æ l k ə ˌ t r æ z /, Spanish: [a l k a ˈ t ɾ a θ] "the gannet") or The Rock, was a maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles (2.01 km) off the coast of San Francisco, California, United States.
There are several reasons that Alcatraz closed as a penitentiary in 1963. The penitentiary cost much more to operate than other prisons (nearly $10 per prisoner per day, as opposed to $3 per prisoner per day at Atlanta). [33] Half a century of salt water saturation had severely eroded the buildings and three people had purportedly escaped in 1962.
After Alcatraz was converted into a federal penitentiary, between 1934 and 1963 the four wardens of Alcatraz resided here including the first warden, James A. Johnston. A house of luxury in stark contrast to the jail next to it, the wardens often held lavish cocktail parties here. [ 3 ]
Modernization of the prison began in October 1933 and Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary opened in August 1934, ending some eighty years of U.S. Army occupation. 32 hardened Army prisoners remained at Alcatraz while the rest were shifted to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, United States Penitentiary, Atlanta, Fort Jay, New Jersey and several others. [10]
The federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island, nicknamed The Rock, stopped operating as a prison in 1963, the year after the men’s escape (Courtesy of San Francisco Public Library)
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