Login
Alcatraz Prison, located on Alcatraz Island, near the bay of San Francisco (California) was one of the safest and most famous prisons in the United States and in which major gangsters were jailed. Such is the case of Al Capone, for example, and of the "Birdman of Alcatraz".
Alcatraz was first a fort and a military prison. Between 1934 and 1963 was a maximum security penitentiary.
Colloquially, it has also been given the name "The Rock", with which also is called in the film of the same name starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.
The fame of Alcatraz security comes from the fact of being on an island and that anyone who wanted to escape had to swim in the cold waters of the bay, at risk of hypothermia or an attack by sharks. However, the Spanish swimmer David Meca got to swim and cover with leg irons the distance that separates the island of San Francisco Bay.
In 1934 Verando began arriving early for Alcatraz inmates. From day one, we applied the criteria that were not sent directly superpenal no prisoners. They had to come from other prisons, especially because of the danger of each. So in other establishments, consisted warning that the riots organize, promote leaks, and other entanglements cause aggression, carried the punishment of being transferred to Alcatraz, truly frightening prospect. The most famous inmates was Al Capone, who arrived in a shipment of fifty-three prisoners who had been in Atlanta and were transported in special trains precautions amazing. They might be termed the first class of criminal.
Alcatraz was born of the obsession with security and anguish because no prisoner ever escaped successfully. Every day of the year were made thirteen individual counts, plus six set apart those to be ordained by chance and unforeseen. Besides these irksome controls, rigor and monotony of time-which ranged from 6.30 am to 21.30, with meals at 7, 11.40 and 16.25-aided tensions that arise among prisoners. Left as an impenetrable mystery of Alcatraz whether the punishments were inflicted very powerful there, besides the terrible confinement in special cells whose details have also been in the shadows. Consists only in some cells prisoners were chained to the ceiling, this rarity is not due to any refinement sadistic, but because certain walls were not strong enough to nail irons.
The food was the only chapter gratp of life in Alcatraz, along with the exquisite hygiene and cleanliness. Even during the war, remained an extraordinary level of cooking, and inmates were allowed to chose the dishes in a menu. What it was strictly forbidden to leave the food on the plate. If they did, they were deprived of the next meal.
Al Capone in Alcatraz and its history
As might be expected, Al Capone was very surprised with these rules, and all others, when he came to Alcatraz. In his first appearance before the Warden Johnston, Al Capone raised thousand demands and had to hear how he answered that he would follow the same rules worldwide, something that had not happened anywhere near their previous incarcerations, which enjoyed carpets, telephones, girlfriends, offices, music, radio and all sorts of amenities.
The prison of Al Capone would serve as test for Alcatraz rumor also that his band would endeavor to free him. None of this happened. Al Capone was sent to work in the laundry and, when warned that aroused much excitement there, he was transferred to clean the bathrooms. Some prisoners are sometimes put to him, maybe to boast of having fought as relevant figure, and one struck him with scissors, causing him minor injuries.
Nothing was mild, however, the devastation in the body of Al Capone was causing sífilisis as a house. At the beginning of being diagnosed, disdained reporting and treatment, but the February 5, 1938 showed signs of mental confusion and difficulties of all kinds nerve. The tabloids accused the regime of having mad Alcatraz, and perhaps that same press a bribe to promote a general atmosphere of leniency towards the famous gangster. Then were outlined his undoubted charitable and benevolent labors, arising from the emotion that made him recall his sad childhood immigrated in Brooklyn. Besides, had not been convicted of anything other than for tax evasion. Al Capone was transferred to the infirmary and it went to other hospitals. As it was approaching its end, the regime was such stays freer and eventually being allowed to die at home in Miami on January 25, 1947.
Robert Stroud - "The Bird Man"
It was never clear that Al Capone was interested in escape from Alcatraz, since he feared for his life if he came to the street. On other occasions in his career, had sought to be held to be protected against enemy gangs. The other prisoner of Alcatraz next in celebrity either never said any effort to escape. I mean, as assumed, the "man of the birds", Robert Stroud, who passed in jail more than fifty years of his life. And rightly so, by the way, because their "curriculum" offense was impressive: he understood the murder of a prison guard, and the murder that had led him to this, burglaries and robberies in profusion, and seasoned with touches sadistic deviant sexual component, all kinds of injuries and the use of alcohol and drugs, eating followed behind bars for many years.
Breeding birds in his cell in the prison began Leawenworth where two neighboring ceded to go expanding its facilities. They grew to three hundred birds, which traded with. The prison management was displeased with Stroud because he abused the tolerance with which he looked at his hobby, letters from abroad hidden in cages pájarosl To make matters worse, had assembled in the cell all alcohol distiller installation .
When he arrived at Alcatraz, Stroud had gone from hobby to breeding birds to be considered an expert in ornithology. He read scientific books and recorded, and by 1955 wrote an autobiography that was very successful and led to a film Pink and benevolent, which showed only the pleasant aspects of his person and is greatly exaggerated scientific knowledge of birds. This did not go beyond the technical levels of a practical man and care applied to the breeding of those. Still, Stroud brought to fulfillment the writing of a book on diseases of canaries and other birds on the general that have sold well and are useful.
Stroud died in 1963, having been transferred to other prison hospitals. Robert Kennedy was attorney general and, to meet the demands to be made of condederle freedom to die at home, said: "But if your home is jail".
Escape attempts
We have repeated that Alcatraz was a kind of monument to the claim of not allowing any leakage. His plans and regulations were inspired by this fundamental criterion. Still, in its annals reigistraron fourteen escape attempts, of which the thirteenth was probably the only lucky. The other ended with the capture of the fugitives or practical evidence of their corpses. Besides the attempt number 13 - we will detail something else, still standing, like a ghost indefinite legend said that in times of tension some inmates receive treatment so bad that excited them to undertake the ominous attempt to escape.
The American press received several complaints of such abuses, sometimes very detailed: he spent six weeks in the dungeons, one was beaten, and yet another was sprayed with gas, the other is mad and locked in a cage. They are very reliable this information because, ultimately, come from the prisoners themselves and they often tended to distort.
Some were convinced that the supreme authority over them was that of Spain, because the fortress where they were entitled to belong to our country. With foundations of this kind could be expected from many of the prisoners strangest behavior. However, the aforementioned rumors were investigated by 1939.
Within escape attempts, several wild and desperate style, as it was the first one there, that of Joseph Bowers, on April 27, 1936. This prisoner was serving a sentence of twenty years for a robbery of $ 16.63. Bowers had the mistake of rob a convenience store where people also attended the postal service, why the crime acquired gravity. The day of the escape, climbed a high fence Bowers, he warned, was shot and fell from twenty meters high.
In the second attempt, recorded on December 16, 1937, the two fugitives disappeared without having heard from them. They were Ralph Roe and Theodore Cole, two dangerous offenders sentenced to long prison sentences. Took a foggy day and probably reached the sea. However, strong tides, the icy waters and strong currents that day, inclined to think that drowned. Other escape attempts were aborted during shootings that killed some guards and the fugitives were killed or wounded, when they surrendered and were subject to new sentences. Being retried for the offenses involved in their escape attempts, incriminating the accused defended themselves living conditions of Alcatraz. By 1939 we proceeded to some reform in isolation units.
The bloodiest escape attempt was the tenth, which occurred on May 2, 1946. It was the work of six prisoners, three of whom were killed, as were two guards. Seventeen others were also wounded guards and a prisoner. The remaining two were executed after their participation in those deaths. During his attempt, the fugitives could sotaron a few prisoners and they were strong in certain units criminal so hard we had to call the army and marines, plus guards from other prisons, to reduce them. To this end gases were used, anti-tank grenades and demolition charges. The justly called "Battle of Alcatraz" gave ammunition to critics of the prison and showed that the mechanisms of the center could be collapsed by prisoners, against all shuffled premises in its organization and operation.
The thirteenth attempt, the June 11, 1962, is the foundation gave a relatively recent movie, which speculates on the fate of the three fugitivosl Although the official version is that perished in the waters, they know that they were not as effects as in the failed attempt that we have previously outlined: the sea was twelve degrees and the current was moderate. The protagonists were Frank Lee Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, bank robbers. The film story takes friendly match ingenious artifice of the leak. Inmates working in the art studio of Alcatraz and were skilled painters. In addition to replacing with some cardboard painted bars of the vents through which escaped, the artists produced three heads of pasta, gave color and put them real hair, the barbershop collected Alcatraz. The heads, colodadas in their beds, gave the impression that they were still in the same when the counts were made. During this escape, the prisoners took advantage of a series of errors, oversights and blunders of the guards and came to know that the sea days later, on the other side of the bay, they found a wallet with family photos that associated with one of the fugitives. Nothing more has been heard of them then.
This evasion, plus the failed attempt to produce the December 14, 1962-and that was the last-, rekindled the debate on Alcatraz. If suitable addition to cheering, their adversaries said, is that the criminal is vulnerable, what is it?. To make matters worse, it happened that the salinity of the air corroded the metal estructruras and even the cement, swaps that would have forced a costly reconstruction. The neighborhood of the bay also protested that Alcatraz was a source of waste that flowed into the water. In sum, during the administration of Robert Kennedy in the attorney general of the United States, it was decided to close the prison. The year was 1963. Later regain some notoriety when he took over a group of environmentalists and supporters of the Reds. At present, it has become a center of tourist attraction. They sell informational materials that we have outlined in this miscellany. The last prisoner, Frank Watherman, to leave that place on March 21, 1963, said sententiously: "Alcatraz never did anyone any good."
