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- Inmates had access to a library of 15,000 books and 75 popular magazines subscriptions. They could do artwork, write letters, and play stringed instruments in their cells. There was even an inmate band. There were several talented artists, including James Widner and John Paul Chase, whose work is featured here.
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How many prisoners were held at Alcatraz?
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Why did Alcatraz have a federal prison?
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.
Inmates were housed one man to a cell. Two-person cells, four-person cells, and open dormitories were common in other federal prisons. Inmates at other prisons spent most of their days out of their cells at mandatory work programs, educational classes, and recreational activities.
- Inmate #85: Al 'Scarface' Capone
- Inmate #110: Roy Gardner
- Inmate #117: George 'Machine Gun' Kelly
- Inmate #325: Alvin 'Creepy' Karpis
- Inmate #594: Robert 'Birdman' Stroud
- Inmate #1428: James 'Whitey' Bulger
- Inmate #1518: Meyer 'Mickey' Cohen
Conviction:Tax evasion Time Served at Alcatraz:5 years (1934–1939) Post-Term:mental illness, death from syphilis By the time Al Caponearrived at Alcatraz on the morning of August 22, 1934, he was past his peak as a crime kingpin. He had been sentenced to an 11-year term in 1931 after several lengthy court cases that focused more on his errant decla...
Conviction: Armed robbery Time Served at Alcatraz:2 years (1934–1936) Post-Term:author, suicide Alcatraz was repurposed by the federal government from a military prison to a general federal prison in 1933 expressly to deal with criminals like Roy G. Gardner, the man who was nicknamed “King of the Escape Artists.” Gardner seemed to be an outlaw from...
Conviction:Kidnapping Time Served at Alcatraz: 17 years (1934–1951) Post-Term: died of a heart attack in jail It couldn’t be said that many of the criminals who ended up in Alcatraz were from good families, but Machine Gun Kellywas raised in a well-off Memphis household and even attended some college. A sudden marriage led him to drop out of school...
Conviction: Kidnapping Time Served at Alcatraz: 26 years (1936–1962) Post-Term: author, pill overdose Like "Machine Gun" Kelly, Alvin Francis Karpowicz saw kidnapping as an easier way to make large sums of money than bank robbing. Known as “Creepy” by fellow gang members for his unsettling grin, the native Canadian became the brains behind the Bark...
Conviction:Murder Time Served at Alcatraz: 17 years (1942–1959) Post-Term:death by natural causes in jail Possibly the most famous inmate in the history of Alcatraz is Robert Stroud, the so-called "Birdman of Alcatraz." This is due to a very successful 1962 movie (loosely) based on his life starring Burt Lancaster. The title of the film has given r...
Conviction:Armed robbery Time Served at Alcatraz:3 years (1959–1962) Post-Term:killed in prison Most people think of Alcatraz as a relic of past times, a chapter in a long-closed history of crime in America, but there are former inmates of Alcatraz who are still alive today. One of the most notorious is James “Whitey” Bulger, a man who began his ca...
Conviction:Tax evasion Time Served at Alcatraz: about a year, on and off (1961–1963) Post-Term: prison pipe attack, natural death Alcatraz wasn’t very far from closing when Meyer Harris “Mickey” Cohen made his two brief visits. Convicted of tax evasion for the second time in 10 years, Cohen served his time at Alcatraz in two parts – he was actually...
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- Early Years as a Military Prison. In 1775, Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala (1745-97) mapped and named rugged Alcatraz Island, christening it La Isla de los Alcatraces, or Island of the Pelicans, due to its large population of sea birds.
- Doing Time as a Federal Prison: 1934-63. In 1933, the Army relinquished Alcatraz to the U.S. Justice Department, which wanted a federal prison that could house a criminal population too difficult or dangerous to be handled by other U.S. penitentiaries.
- Famous Inmates. Among those who did time at The Rock was the notorious Prohibition-era gangster Al “Scarface” Capone, who spent four-and-a-half years there during the 1930s.
- Escape Attempts from Alcatraz. Over the years, there were 14 known attempts to escape from Alcatraz, involving 36 inmates. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports that of these would-be escapees, 23 were captured, six were shot and killed during their attempted getaways, two drowned and five went missing and were presumed drowned.
Alcatraz was designed to hold prisoners who continuously caused trouble at other federal prisons. At 9:40 am on August 11, 1934, the first batch of 137 prisoners arrived at Alcatraz, arriving by railroad from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Venetia, California.
The US penitentiary on Alcatraz opened in 1934. The Federal Bureau of Prisons maintained the facility to incarcerate a small number of inmates who were so dangerous, so violent, and so escape-prone that they could not be managed safely in other prisons.
Inmates had access to a library of 15,000 books and 75 popular magazines subscriptions. They could do artwork, write letters, and play stringed instruments in their cells. There was even an inmate band.
