Prison Life on Alcatraz Part II

 Prison life and the cells

An inmate register reveals that there were 1,576 prisoners in total held at Alcatraz during its time as a Federal Penitentiary, although figures reported have varied and some have stated 1,557. The prison cells, purposefully designed so that none adjoined an outside wall, typically measured 9 feet (2.7 m) by 5 ft (1.5 m) and 7 ft (2.1 m) high. The cells were primitive with a bed, a desk and a washbasin and toilet on the back wall and few furnishings except a blanket. An air vent, measuring 6 inches (150 mm) by 9 in (230 mm), covered by a metal grille, lay at the back of the cells which led into the utility corridors.  Prisoners had no privacy in going to the toilet and the toilets would emit a strong stench because they were flushed with salt water. Hot water taps were not installed until the early 1960s, shortly before closure.

The penitentiary established a very strict regimen of rules and regulations under the title "the Rules and Regulations for the Government and Discipline of the United States Penal and Correctional Institutions" and also a "Daily Routine of Work and Counts" to be followed by the prisoners and also the guards. Copies of these were provided to the prisoners to read and follow. Inmates were basically entitled to food, clothing, shelter, and medical attention. Anything else was seen as a privilege. Inmates were given a blue shirt, grey pants (blue and white in later years), webbed belt, cotton long underwear, socks and a blue handkerchief; the wearing of caps was forbidden in the cellhouse.

Cells were expected to be kept tidy and in good order. Any dangerous article found in the cells or on inmates such as money, narcotics, intoxicating substances or tools which had the potential to inflict injury or assist in an escape attempt was considered contraband and made the prisoners eligible for disciplinary action. It was compulsory for prisoners to shave in their cells three times a week. Attempting to bribe, intimidate, or assault prison officers was seen as a very serious offense. African-Americans were segregated from the rest in cell designation due to racial abuse being prevalent.

Toilet paper, matches, soap, and cleanser were issued to the cells on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and inmates could request hot water and a mop to clean their cells. The bars, windows and floors of the prison were cleaned on a daily basis. In earlier years there was a strict code of silence but by the 1950s this had relaxed and talking was permitted in the cellhouse and dining hall provided conversations were quiet and there was no shouting, loud talking, whistling or singing.

Plan of the main cellhouse

Prisoners would be woken at 6:30 am, and sent to breakfast at 6:55 am. After returning to the cell, inmates then had to tidy their cell and place the waste basket outside. At 7:30 am, work started in the shifts for those privileged enough to do so, punctuated by a whistle, and prisoners would have to go through a metal detector during work shifts. If assigned a job, prisoners had to accept that line of work; prisoners were not permitted to have money in their possessions but earnings went into a prisoner's Trust Fund.

Some of the prisoners were assigned duties with the guards and foremen in the Laundry, Tailor Shop, Cobblers Shop, Model Shop etc. and in gardening and labor. Smoking, a privilege, was permitted in the workplace providing that it would not be hazardous, but inmates were not permitted to smoke between the recreation yard and work. Lunch was served at 11:20 am, followed by a 30-minute rest in the cell, before returning to work until 16:15.

Dinner was served at 16:25 and the prisoners would then retire to their cells to be locked in for the night at 16:50. Lights went off at 21:30. After being locked in for the night, 6 guards usually patrolled the four cell blocks. Many prisoners have compared their duration at Alcatraz to hell and would have preferred death to continued incarceration.

Alcatraz Library was located at the end of D-Block. Upon entering Alcatraz, every inmate was given a library card and a catalog of books found in the library. Inmates could place orders by putting a slip with their card in a box at the entrance to the dining hall before breakfast, and the books would be delivered to and from their cell by a librarian. The library, which utilized a closed-stack paging system, had a collection of 10,000 to 15,000 books, mainly left over from the army days.

Inmates were permitted a maximum of three books in addition of up to twelve text books, a Bible, and a dictionary. They were permitted to subscribe to magazines but crime-related pages were torn out and newspapers were prohibited. Sex, crime and violence were censored from all books and magazines, and the library was governed by a chaplain who regulated the censorship and the nature of the reading material to ensure that the material was wholesome. Failure to return books by the date given made the inmate liable to removal of privileges.

The average prisoner read 75 to 100 books a year. Every evening, inmates would generally read books loaned from the library and usually an hour or 75 minutes was allocated to the practicing of musical instruments, from the guitar to the accordion. A prison band often practiced in the dining room or auditorium above it. Al Capone famously practiced the banjo in the shower block, although most prisoners were limited to playing in their cells alone.

Corridors

"Broadway"

Alcatraz cellhouse had a corridor naming system named after major American streets and landmarks. Michigan Avenue was the corridor to the side of A-Block. Broadway was the central corridor in which the inmates would assemble as they massed through Times Square (an area with a clock on the wall), before entering the dining hall for their meals. Broadway separated Block-B and Block-C and prisoners kept along it had the least privacy in the prison.

The corridor between Block-C and the library was called Park Avenue. The corridor in D-Block was named Sunset Strip. Gun galleries lay at the end of each block, including the West and East Gun Galleries.

A-Block

A-Block was never modernized, so retained its "flat strap-iron bars, key locks and spiral staircases" from the original military prison.[69] No inmates were permanently held there during the years Alcatraz was a federal penitentiary. Several inmates, however, were held briefly in A-Block before a hearing or transfer. In the later years, A-Block was mainly used for storage. A law library was set up at some point, where inmates could type legal documents.

'A Block'

A small barber's shop was located at the end of A-block where inmates would have a monthly haircut.

B-Block

Most new inmates at Alcatraz were assigned to the second tier of B-Block. They had "quarantine status" for their first three months in confinement in Alcatraz, and were not permitted visitors for a minimum of 90 days. Inmates were permitted one visitor a month, although anybody likely to cause trouble such as registered criminals was barred from visiting. Letters received by inmates were checked by prison staff first, to see if they could decipher any secret messages. Frank Morris and his fellow escapees escaped Alcatraz during the June 1962 escape from Alcatraz by entering a utility corridor behind B-Block. 

C-Block

D-Block

D-Block gained notoriety as a "Treatment block" for some of the worst inmates, with varying degrees of punishment, including Isolation, Solitary and Strip. Prisoners usually spent anywhere from 3 to 19 days in Solitary. Prisoners held here would be given their meals in their cells, were not permitted to work and could only shower twice a week. After a 1939 escape attempt in which Arthur "Doc" Barker was killed, the Bureau of Prisons tightened security in the D-Block. The Birdman of Alcatraz inhabited cell 42 in D-Block in solitary confinement for 6 years.

D-Block

The worst cells for confinement as a punishment for inmates who stepped out of line were located at the end of D-Block in cells 9–14, known as "The Hole". Inmates held in the hole were limited to just one 10-minute shower and an hour of exercise in the yard a week. The five cells of "The Hole" had nothing but a sink and toilet; the very worst cell was the final cell, nicknamed "The Oriental" or "Strip Cell", which contained nothing but a hole in the floor as a toilet, and in which prisoners would often be confined naked with nothing else for two days. The guards controlled the flushing of the toilet in the final cell.

After completing the punishment in the Hole, the prisoner could then return to his cell but would be tagged. A red tag, third grade, denoted a prisoner who was restricted from leaving his cell for perhaps 3 months. At second grade the prisoners could receive letters, and if after 30 days they remained well-behaved, they would then be restored full prison privileges.

Its size was approximately that of regular cell-9 feet by 5 feet by about 7 feet high. I could just touch the ceiling by stretching out my arm [...] you are stripped nude and pushed into the cell. Guards take your clothes and go over them minutely for what few grains of tobacco may have fallen into the cuffs or pockets. There is no soap. No tobacco. No toothbrush, the smell – well you can describe it only by the word 'stink.' It is like stepping into a sewer. It is nauseating. After they have searched your clothing, they throw it at you. For bedding, you get two blankets, around 5 in the evening. You have no shoes, no bed, no mattress-nothing but the four damp walls and two blankets. The walls are painted black. Once a day I got three slices of bread—no—that is an error. Some days I got four slices. I got one meal in five days, and nothing but bread in between. In the entire thirteen days I was there, I got two meals [...] I have seen but one man get a bath in solitary confinement, in all the time that I have been there. That man had a bucket of cold water thrown over him.— Henri Young testifying his experiences in "The Hole" at Alcatraz during his 1941 trial.

Dining

Alcatraz Dining Hall, often referred to as the Mess Hall, is the dining hall where the prisoners and staff ate their meals. It is a long wing on the west end of the Main Cellhouse of Alcatraz, situated in the center of the island. It is connected to the block by a corridor known as "Times Square", as it passes beneath a large clock approaching the entrance way to the dining hall. This wing includes the dining hall and the kitchen beyond it. On the second floor were the hospital and the auditorium, which was where movies were screened to the inmates on weekends.

Dining hall protocol was a scripted process, including a whistle system to indicate which block and tier of men would move into and out of the hall at any given time, who sat where, where to place hands, and when to start eating. Prisoners would be awakened at 6:30 am, and sent to breakfast at 6:55 am. A breakfast menu is still preserved on the hallway board, dated March 21, 1963. The breakfast menu included assorted dry cereals, steamed whole wheat, a scrambled egg, milk, stewed fruit, toast, bread, and butter. Lunch was served in the dining hall at 11:20 am, followed by a 30-minute rest in the cell, before returning to work until 16:15.

Dinner was served at 16:25 and the prisoners would then go to their cells at 16:50 to be locked in for the night. Inmates were permitted to eat as much as they liked within 20 minutes, provided they left no waste. Waste would be reported and may make the prisoner subject to removal of privileges if they made a habit of it.

Each dining table had benches which held up to six men, although smaller tables and chairs later replaced these which seated four. All of the prison population, including the guards and officials would dine together, thus seating over 250 people. The food served at Alcatraz was reportedly the best in the United States prison system.

Recreation

Recreation Yard

The Recreation Yard was the yard used by inmates of the prison between 1934 and 1963. It is located opposite the dining hall south of the end of D-Block, facing the mainland on a raised level surrounded by a high wall and fence above it. Guard Tower #3 lay just to the west of the yard. The gun gallery was situated in the yard, mounted on one of the dining hall's exterior walls.

In 1936, the previously dirt-covered yard was paved. The yard was part of the most violent escape attempt from Alcatraz in May 1946 when a group of inmates hatched a plot to obtain the key into the recreation yard, kill the tower guards, take hostages, and use them as shields to reach the dock.

Inmates were permitted out into the yard on Saturdays and Sundays and on holidays for a maximum of 5 hours.[88][89] Inmates who worked seven days a week in the kitchen were rewarded with short yard breaks during the weekdays. Badly behaved prisoners were liable to having their yard access rights taken away from them on weekends. The prisoners of Alcatraz were permitted to play games such as baseball, softball and other sports at these times and intellectual games such as chess.

Because of the small size of the yard and the diamond at the end of it, a section of the wall behind the first base had to be padded to cushion the impact of inmates overrunning it. Inmates were provided gloves, bats, and balls, but no sport uniforms. In 1938, there were four amateur teams, the Bees, Oaks, Oilers, and Seals, named after Minor League clubs, and four league teams named after Major League clubs, the Cardinals, Cubs, Giants, and Tigers. Many of the inmates used weekends in the yards to converse with each other and discuss crime, the only real opportunities they had during the week for a durable conversation.

Other buildings

Warden's House

The Warden's House and lighthouse

The Warden's House is located at the northeastern end of the Main Cellblock, next to Alcatraz Lighthouse. The 3-floor 15-room mansion was built in 1921 according to the Golden Gate National Recreational Area signpost, although some sources say it was built in 1926 or 1929 and had 17 or 18 rooms.

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. The signpost at the spot shows a photograph of a trusted inmate doing chores at the house for the warden and that the house had a terraced garden and greenhouse. The mansion had tall windows, providing fine views of San Francisco Bay. Today, the house is a ruin, burned down by Native Americans during the Occupation of Alcatraz on June 1, 1970.

Building 64

Building 64 Residential Apartments was the first building constructed on the island of Alcatraz, intended entirely for the purpose of accommodating the military officers and their families living on the island. Located next to the dock on the southeastern side of the island, below the Warden's House, the three-story apartment block was built in 1905 on the site of a U.S. Army barracks which had been there from the 1860s. It functioned as the Military Guard Barracks from 1906 until 1933. One of its largest apartments in the southwest corner was known as the "Cow Palace" and a nearby alleyway was known as "Chinatown".

Social Hall

The ruined Social Hall of Alcatraz

The Social Hall, also known as the Officers' Club, was a social club located on the northwestern side of the island. Located in proximity to the Power House, water tower and Former Military Chapel (Bachelor Quarters), it formerly housed the Post Exchange. The club was a social venue for the Federal Penitentiary workers and their families on the island to unwind after locking up Alcatraz's criminals at 17:30. It was burned down by Native Americans during the Occupation of Alcatraz in 1970, leaving a shell which still remains.

The club had a small bar, library, large dining and dance floor, billiards table, ping pong table and a two-lane bowling alley, and was the centre of social life on the island for the employees of the penitentiary. It regularly hosted dinners, bingo events, and from the 1940s onwards showed movies every Sunday night after they had been shown to the inmates during the day on Saturday and Sunday. The club was responsible for organizing numerous special events on the island (held either in the hall or the Parade Grounds) and the fundraising associated with it, anything from ice cream and watermelon feasts to Halloween fancy dress and Christmas parties.

Power House

The Power House is located on the northwest coast of Alcatraz Island. It was constructed in 1939 for $186,000 as part of a $1.1 million modernization scheme which also included the water tower, New Industries Building, officers’ quarters and remodeling of the D-block. The white powerhouse smokestack and lighthouse were said to give an "appearance of a ship's mast on either side of the island". A sign reading "A Warning. Keep Off. Only Government permitted within 200 yards" lay in front of the powerhouse to deter people landing on the island at the point.

 

Between 1939 and 1963, it supplied power to the Federal Penitentiary and other buildings on the island. The powerhouse had a tower duty station which was guarded with a "30-caliber Winchester rifle with 50 rounds of ammunition, a 1911 semiautomatic pistol with three seven-round magazines, three gas grenades, and a gas mask".

Alcatraz water tower

The water tower is located on the northwestern side of the island, near Tower No. 3, beyond the Morgue and Recreation Yard. The water tank is situated on six cross-braced steel legs submerged in concrete foundations.

As Alcatraz had no water supply of its own, it had to import it from the mainland, brought by tug and barge. During the island's military years, there were in-ground water tanks and water tanks were situated on the roof of the citadel. The water tower was built in 1940–41 by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, after the island received a government renovations grant to supply the majority of the island's fresh water.

It is the tallest building on the island, at a height of 94 feet (29 m) with a volume of 250,000 US gallons (950 kL) gallons of fresh water. It was used to store potable water for drinking, water for firefighting, and water for the island's service laundry facility.

Model Industries Building

The Model Industries Building is a three/four-story building on the northwest corner of Alcatraz Island. This building was originally built by the U.S. military and was used as a laundry building until the New Industries Building was built as part of a redevelopment program on Alcatraz in 1939 when it was a federal penitentiary. As part of the Alcatraz jail, it held workshops for inmates to work in.

On January 10, 1935, the building shifted to within 2.5 feet from the edge of the cliff following a landslide caused by a severe storm. The warden at the time, James A. Johnston, proposed extend the seawall next to it and asked the bureau for $6500 to fund it. He would later claim to dislike the building because it was irregularly shaped. A smaller, cheaper riprap was completed by the end of 1935.

A guard tower and a catwalk from Hill Tower was added to the roof of the Industries Building in June 1936 and the building was made secure with bars from old cells to bar the windows and roof ventilators to prevent inmates from escaping from the roof. It ceased use as a laundry in 1939 when it was moved to the upper floor of the New Industries Building. Today the building is heavily rusted after decades of exposure to the salt air and wind, and neither the guard tower on top of the building nor the Hill Tower still exist.

New Industries Building

The New Industries Building was constructed in 1939 for $186,000 as part of a $1.1 million modernization scheme which also included the water tower, power house, officers' quarters and remodeling of the D-block.

The ground floor of the two-story 306 ft long building contained a clothing factory, dry cleaning plant, furniture plant, brush factory, and an office, where prisoners of the federal penitentiary could work for money. They earned a small wage for their labor which was put into an account, known as a Prisoner's Trust Fund, which would be given to them upon leaving Alcatraz. They made items such as gloves, furniture mats, and army uniforms. The laundry room occupied the entire upper floor, the largest in San Francisco at the time. Each window has 9 panes and there are 17 bays on each floor on either side.

Notable inmates

Arthur R. Barker ("Doc") #268 1935–39   Arthur Barker (June 4, 1899 – January 13, 1939) was the son of Ma Barker and a member of the Barker-Karpis gang along with Alcatraz prisoner 325 Alvin Karpis. In 1935, Barker was sent to Alcatraz Island on conspiracy to kidnap charges. On the night of January 13, 1939, Barker with Henri Young and Rufus McCain attempted escape from Alcatraz. Barker was shot and killed by the guards.

Alphonse "Al" Gabriel Capone ("Scarface") #85 1934–39                When Al Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947) arrived on Alcatraz in 1934, prison officials made it clear that he would not be receiving any preferential treatment. While serving his time in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Capone, a master manipulator, had continued running his rackets from behind bars by buying off guards. Capone generated major media attention while on Alcatraz, though he served just four and a half years of his sentence there before developing symptoms of tertiary syphilis and poor mental health before being transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in Los Angeles in 1938. He tried his best to seek favors from Warden Johnston, but failed, and was given work in the prison performing numerous menial jobs. Capone was involved in many fights with fellow prisoners, including one with an inmate who held a blade to his throat in the prison barbershop after Capone attempted to cut the line. He was released from jail in November 1939 and lived in Miami until his death in 1947 at 48 years of age.

Meyer Harris Cohen ("Mickey") #1518 1961–63  Mickey Cohen (September 4, 1913 – July 29, 1976) worked for the Mafia's gambling rackets; he was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 15 years in Alcatraz Island. He was transferred to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta shortly before Alcatraz closed permanently on March 21, 1963. While at Atlanta, on August 14, 1963, fellow inmate Burl Estes McDonald clobbered Cohen with a lead pipe, partially paralyzing the mobster. After his release in 1972, Cohen led a quiet life with old friends.

Ellsworth Raymond Johnson ("Bumpy")                #1117 1954–63  "Bumpy" Johnson (October 31, 1905 – July 7, 1968), referred to as the "Godfather of Harlem", was an African-American gangster, numbers operator, racketeer, and bootlegger in Harlem in the early 20th century. He was sent to Alcatraz in 1954 and was imprisoned until 1963. He was believed to have been involved in the 1962 escape attempt of Frank Morris, John and Clarence Anglin.

Alvin Francis Karpavicz ("Creepy Karpis")               #325 1936–62    Alvin Karpis (August 10, 1907 – August 26, 1979) was Canadian, of Lithuanian descent. He was nicknamed "Creepy" for his sinister smile and called "Ray" by his gang members. He was known for being one of the three leaders of the Ma Barker-Karpis gang in the 1930s; the other two leaders were Fred and Doc Barker of the Barker–Karpis Gang. He was the only "Public Enemy #1" to be taken personally by J. Edgar Hoover. There were only four "public enemies" ever given the title of "Public Enemy #1" by the FBI. The other three, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson, were all killed before being captured. He also spent the longest time as a federal prisoner in Alcatraz Prison at 26 years. Karpis was credited with ten murders and six kidnappings apart from bank robbery. He was deported to Canada in 1969 and died in Spain in 1979.

George Kelly Barnes ("Machine Gun Kelly") #117 1934–51 "Machine Gun Kelly" (July 18, 1895 – July 18, 1954) arrived on September 4, 1934. At Alcatraz, Kelly was constantly boasting about several robberies and murders that he had never committed. Although his boasts were said to be tiresome to other prisoners, Warden Johnson considered him a model inmate. Inmate #139, Harvey Bailey was his partner. Kelly was returned to Leavenworth in 1951.

Rafael Cancel Miranda   #1163 1954–60  In July 1954, Rafael Cancel Miranda (July 18, 1930 – March 2, 2020) was sent to Alcatraz, where he served six years of his sentence. At Alcatraz he was a model prisoner, where he worked in the brush factory and served as an altar boy at Catholic services. His closest friends were fellow Puerto Ricans Emerito Vasquez and Hiram Crespo-Crespo. They spoke Spanish and watched out for each other. On the recreation yard he often played chess with "Bumpy" Johnson. He also befriended Morton Sobell; they developed a friendship that lasted up until Sobell's death in 2018.

His family made trips to San Francisco to visit him, but he wasn't allowed to see his children. His wife was allowed to talk to him through a glass in the visiting room, using a phone. They were not allowed to speak in Spanish and had to speak in English. He was transferred to Leavenworth in 1960.

Robert Franklin Stroud ("Birdman of Alcatraz") #594 1942–59 Robert Stroud, who was better known to the public as the Birdman of Alcatraz (January 28, 1890 – November 21, 1963), was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942. At a young age he took to pimping and was involved in a murder during a drunken brawl. After terms in McNeil Island and Leavenworth Federal Prison, where he had killed Officer Andrew Turner, he was transferred to Alcatraz, with his sentence extended.

A self-taught ornithologist, he wrote several books. His Digest on the Diseases of Birds is considered a classic in ornithology. He was confined to D-Block in solitary confinement for most of his duration in Alcatraz and after a term in the prison hospital, was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, due to seriously deteriorating health. Although he was given the name "The Birdman of Alcatraz", he was not permitted to keep birds in his prison cell at Alcatraz, as he had at Leavenworth, because it was prohibited. He died in 1963.

Legends

Native Americans, known as Ohlone, were the earliest known inhabitants of Alcatraz Island. In Miwok mythology, evil spirits were said to inhabit the island. In popular culture, Alcatraz has been listed as among the top five allegedly "haunted" spots in California.