Alcatraz by David Ward

Author:David Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2009-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

THE AFTERMATH AND THE END OF AN ERA

In many ways, the battle of Alcatraz marks the end of what this book has referred to as the gangster era. That era defined the purpose of the new federal prison at Alcatraz as a measure specifically intended to combat sensational bank robbers and organized crime figures that were the focus of much publicity in the Depression era that ended with World War II. The celebrity figures of Capone, Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, and Bonnie and Clyde faded from the front pages. As the data in this book show, locking up “public enemies” was the primary business of the prison only for a short period; other troublemaking prisoners in the federal system, particularly those with escape histories or extremely long sentences, constituted the bulk of the population transferred to Alcatraz. Moreover, the composition of the institutional population at Alcatraz (and U.S. prisons in general) was beginning to shift, adding larger numbers of black and other minority offenders to the prison census. Alcatraz would run another fifteen years but would take on a broader range of problems. By 1946 the entire country was moving into what would be a decade of great postwar social change on many levels. The prison world itself would move from the cliché of the “big house” penitentiary intent on control and deterrence to the concept of “correctional treatment,” best embodied in the newly organized California Department of Corrections with the indeterminate sentence and the as yet untested assumption that a variety of psychological and educational programs would lead to the rehabilitation of convicts.

The battle of Alcatraz was not only the most deadly, dramatic, and costly event that had ever occurred in the prison’s short history, it was also one of the most serious disturbances in American penal history. Until the deadly violence at Attica State Prison in New York twenty-five years later, no prison uprising so thoroughly captured the attention of the public, the media, and government officials. An event of such magnitude could not pass without serious consequences.

As the nation was caught up in analysis and disagreements about the prison, its prisoners, and the federal government’s reason for its establishment, Alcatraz administrators made several changes to improve security. Immediately after the revolt was put down, the silent system was reimposed. Inmates accepted it for a few days, understanding the level of anger the staff felt over the deaths and injuries sustained by their fellow officers. Heavy wire mesh screening was placed over the gun gallery bars, cross bars were applied to the gun gallery so that a bar spreader could not separate the bars, and heavy steel plates were installed over the entire west end gun cage from floor to ceiling in D block. Two officers were assigned to the west gun gallery, one on the cell house side and one on the D unit side, and one man was placed in the east gun gallery (a practice that soon stopped). Portholes to allow gunfire from outside were punched through the walls of the cell house at various places.

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