Donald Trump orders notorious Alcatraz prison to be re-opened for 'America's most violent offenders'

Donald Trump has ordered his government to re-open and expand the notorious Alcatraz , saying it would house “the most ruthless and violent ”.

In a message posted to his Truth Social site on Sunday, Trump said: “REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering.” added that was once a serious nation that did not hesitate to “lock up the most dangerous , and keep them far away from anyone they could harm.”

“No longer will we tolerate these Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets." he said: “That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders. We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally. The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

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Leading Democrats have branded the proposal as unserious. The infamous maximum-security prison - known as The Rock - was shut down in 1963 and now operates as a successful tourist attraction on an island near San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. Trump has repeatedly clashed with the courts over his hardline stance on crime, including his controversial policy of sending alleged gang members to a prison in El Salvador. In March, he transferred over 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members there - and has even hinted at the idea of sending American criminals to foreign prisons.

Alcatraz began life as a naval defence fort, later rebuilt in the early 20th century as a military prison. The Department of Justice took over in the 1930s, and it soon began housing convicts from the federal prison system. Among its most notorious inmates were gangsters Al Capone, Mickey Cohen and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.

The prison gained further notoriety from the 1962 film Birdman of Alcatraz, starring Burt Lancaster, which told the story of convicted murderer Robert Stroud. While serving a life sentence on the island, Stroud developed a fascination with birds and became a self-taught expert ornithologist. Alcatraz also featured as the dramatic setting for the 1996 action film The Rock, starring Sean Connery and , where a former SAS captain and an FBI chemist team up to rescue hostages from the island.

The prison was ultimately shut down because it was too expensive to run. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it cost nearly three times more to operate than any other federal facility, mostly due to its isolated island location. “To make Alcatraz a functioning prison again would require an enormous amount of money,” Professor Gabriel Jack Chin of the University of California, Davis School of Law, told the .

Chin saidthe federal prison population is currently down by around 25% from its peak. “There are a lot of empty beds in existing prisons, so it’s not clear a new one is needed,” he said.

Alcatraz has a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense prison - and Trump is trying to send a message that his government will be tough on crime, Chin added.

But not everyone is convinced. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat whose district includes Alcatraz, called the proposal “not a serious one.” State Senator Scott Wiener, also a San Francisco Democrat, labelled the idea “deeply unhinged” in an post, calling it “an attack on the rule of law.”