The White House included a $152 million request on Friday aimed at returning the former Alcatraz prison island to active service as a federal penitentiary. The funding request appears in the proposed budget to finance the government for the 2027 fiscal year and is designated to cover first-year rebuilding costs for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The budget language specifies that the funds would be used to reconstruct Alcatraz into "a state-of-the-art secure prison facility." While the administration has put the request forward, such budget items are generally treated by lawmakers in Congress as recommendations rather than guaranteed appropriations.
Alcatraz has been managed by the National Park Service since its 1969 closure as a federal prison. The island originally opened as a federal penitentiary in 1934 and gained a reputation as the nation's most secure prison because of its isolated location, frigid surrounding waters and strong currents. Official records indicate there were no successful escapes from the island, although five inmates are listed as "missing and presumed drowned."
Before it was shuttered in 1969, the island housed high-profile inmates including Al Capone and James "Whitey" Bulger. The Bureau of Prisons' own account notes that Alcatraz was closed because operating it was prohibitively expensive; it was nearly three times more costly to run than other federal prisons at the time.
The funding request follows a year-old directive in which the President announced on social media in May that he was ordering the Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies to "reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders." The budget submission aims to provide the first-year capital required to begin that rebuilding process under the Bureau of Prisons' oversight.
This proposal moves a historic tourist destination back into the scope of federal corrections planning and raises questions about budgeting priorities, management transfer from the National Park Service and the operational costs associated with running a high-security island facility once again.