Donald Trump has ordered the reopening of Alcatraz, the notorious island prison, to “house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders”.

Announcing his idea on his Truth Social platform, the US President wrote: “When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

His implication was that America had grown too feeble to give its worst criminals what they deserve: being thrown on a prison island.

The new Alcatraz, he said, should be “substantially enlarged and rebuilt” to house “the dregs of society” to “serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE”.

What Trump overlooked, though, was that Alcatraz did not close in 1963 because the US justice system went soft. It shut because it was ruinously expensive.

For a president notionally concerned with cutting waste and eliminating America’s debts, that could prove a problem.

Expensive and crumbling

The island prison, more than a mile off the shore of San Francisco, once housed notorious gangsters Al Capone, Mickey Cohen and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.

The US Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) says on its website that Alcatraz was originally closed “because the institution was too expensive to continue operating”.

The BOP said Alcatraz “was nearly three times more expensive to operate than any other federal prison”, according to data collected in 1959.

Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, California (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

With the prison located in the middle of San Francisco Bay, and surrounded by strong currents, everything from fuel, food and building materials had to be brought by boat.

“The island had no source of fresh water, so nearly one million gallons of water had to be barged to the island each week,” BOP said.

“The Federal Government found that it was more cost-effective to build a new institution than to keep Alcatraz open.”

Not really escape-proof

The main selling point of Alcatraz is obvious – the natural barrier of the sea. But, famously, that did not actually serve to stop escape attempts.

In the 29 years it was open, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes from Alcatraz, according to the FBI. Nearly all were caught or did not survive the attempt.

The fate of three particular inmates – John Anglin, his brother Clarence and Frank Morris – is of some debate and was dramatised in the 1979 film “Escape from Alcatraz” starring Clint Eastwood.

Bringing the facility up to modern-day standards would require massive investments, and would be out of place with efforts by the BOP to close down outdated facilities elsewhere.

Budget cuts

A renovated Alcatraz sits uneasily with Trump’s sweeping ambitions elsewhere to cut government spending, including the budget which pays for prisons.

Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has for the last four months been working to downsize the workforce under the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). Musk’s decisions have often sent shocks through the federal government and drawn intense scrutiny.

A few days before Trump’s Alcatraz directive, the White House proposed slashing Justice Department funding by nearly 8 per cent.

In a so-called “skinny budget”, the White House on Friday said Congress should provide $33.2bn to the Justice Department for the next fiscal year, down from its current funding level of $36bn.

It is currently unclear how the reduced funding would affect the agency, but would doubtless make it harder to rebuild Alcatraz while retaining its other functions.

Elsewhere, officials have been more focused on closing prisons, announcing in December the shuttering of six federal prison camps and  Federal Correctional Institution Dublin in California.

Trump said the Alcatraz prison should be ‘substantially enlarged and rebuilt’ (Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP)

The BOP also said last month that it would restrict pre-release custody of inmates to 60 days maximum, to save the money needed to detain them longer.

Trump’s prison plan

Trump’s directive to reopen Alcatraz is the latest salvo in his effort to overhaul how and where federal prisoners and immigration detainees are locked up.

Trump said he arrived at the decision to order the reopening of Alcatraz because of frustrations with “radicalised judges” who have insisted those being deported receive due process.

Alcatraz, he said, has long been a “symbol of law and order. You know, it’s got quite a history.”

Trump is currently locked in a clash with the courts over sending accused gang members to El Salvador’s a maximum-security prisons, without due process.

He has complained that the legal system prevents him from protecting the US, and has warmed to the idea of shipping accused criminals to other countries.

Trump has also directed the opening of a detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to hold up to 30,000 of what he has labelled the “worst criminal aliens”.

A spokesperson for BOP said in a statement that the agency “will comply with all presidential orders”.