President Donald Trump is on the right track wanting to bring Alcatraz back

Editor’s Note: As it turns out, long-time Canada Free Press pundit and commenter Phil Dollison, son of Arthur Dollison, Associate Warden of Alcatraz—who says that President Donald Trump is on the right track wanting to bring Alcatraz back—actually lived on Alcatraz Island with his family as a 16-year-old teenager, underlines the old adage that Truth is often stranger than fiction.

President Trump’s insightful decision to reopen Alcatraz Federal Prison sends a powerful message to those intent on the destruction of our laws and violating our borders. Alcatraz is seen throughout the world as a dreadful place to spend years of captivity.

Alcatraz was reserved for the worst of the worst

Nobody, with one major exception, was ever sentenced directly to Alcatraz, All Federal sentences were directed to other Federal Prisons throughout our nation, such as Ashland Kentucky, Terra Haute, Indiana, Leavenworth Kansas, and many others.

Alcatraz was reserved for the worst of the worst from other Federal prisons whereby they could not easily be controlled from fighting, killing, attacking an officer, or instigating a riot. Inmates everywhere knew if you screwed up bad enough, you would be transferred to the dreaded Alcatraz, which had an outstanding reputation for dealing with the bad guys.

Now, an illegal crossing our border committing a crime could be sent directly to Alcatraz. You can't escape from Alcatraz, having to swim through the shark infested waters of San Francisco Bay, with its ferocious tides easily sweeping a person out through the Golden Gate bridge into the open ocean.

Alcatraz inmates were not allowed to take cold showers, (preparing to escape through the frigid waters). They wouldn’t have access to tide tables which would tell them when it might be safe to get into the water. They were not able to correspond with anyone to arrange to have a boat get close enough to the Rock to pick up an escaping inmate.

They were completely cut off from society. If they were fortunate enough to have their wife or mother visit them, she would have to go into a special room, with a wall telephone and be separated by bullet proof glass. She would not have been able to touch you or pass anything through the window.

The world never knew that inmates of Alcatraz were the safest and best fed inmates of any prison in America

Every letter prisoners wrote to send to a family member, or an attorney, would have it carefully read and scrutinized by a Correctional Officer before it left the prison, the same with any incoming mail.

Most everyone held in federal prisons throughout the nation knew the terrible reputation of Alcatraz. You don't want to go there so you had better be a good boy (inmate) You would not want to ever be brutalized at Alcatraz.

In actuality, this was mostly, except for the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay, a somewhat false legend. The world never knew that inmates of Alcatraz were the safest and best fed inmates of any prison in America.

Warden James A. Johnston, the first warden of Alcatraz, 1934 – 1948. was wise enough to understand that keeping Alcatraz inmates cool and containable, on a small Island, they had to be well fed. This was a wise decision as it very much helped keep Alcatraz safe.

The ceilings of the inmate dining room, holding some 250 inmates had canisters of tear gas attached to the ceiling. At the first indication of a riot, the canisters could be activated from the prison control center filling the large dining room with choking tear gas to end any attempted riot. Not once in the history of Alcatraz were any of these tear gas canisters released.

Every inmate on the Island had a job if he didn't want to be locked inside his cell for up to 23 hours per day. Alcatraz had five factories, serving mostly government contracts, Ft. Mason and the Presidio of San Francisco among others.

The jobs, including factory work in furniture for government agencies, gloves, laundry for the military and prison families, and all around prison maintenance, as well as dock workers, which were the best jobs on Alcatraz.

During WW2 the inmates also made rope nets to protect the waters of San Francisco Bay from being invaded by submarines, entering through the Golden Gate bridge.

Inmates were able to attend weekly church services as well as view occasional movies on the Island. If prisoners had visitors, a wife, mother or an Attorney, the visitor had to talk via a telephone behind bullet proof glass. In a special room. No touching or passing anything through to the inmate was possible.

I was at a gathering of national park employees one day, including one former inmate who was a newly appointed Park ranger. One of the Park Rangers speaking stated that the inmates of Alcatraz were well paid for daily work assignments. The former inmate, now a Park ranger, blurted out: “ Yea, $ .85 cents an hour. “ It wasn't much, however it gave the inmates access to the prisoner canteen for cigarettes, shaving gear and other necessary accessories. Candy was only allowed at Christmas.

The best jobs for Inmates were on the dock where 4 select inmates could work and be able to view the families, wives, girls and boys, entering or leaving the Warden Johnston, our 65 ft. diesel ferry boat carrying passengers traveling between the rock and San Francisco almost every hour of the day, from 6:am in the morning until 12:15 am at night. The Warden Johnston was our school bus.

Every time our boat entered or left the dock headed for San Francisco, the four inmates working the dock had to walk back to a yellow line painted along the concrete down from the passenger waiting area. They had to stand there in direct eyesight from the guard in the dock tower armed with a 3030 rifle until the boat left the dock or when entering the dock with passengers, until they had all gotten off and left the dock.

All Alcatraz inmates, around 250, were single celled, only one man to a cell. This kept murder, rape, stealing and fighting from happening during non-working hours. The inmates were safe in the cell house. In 1934, when Alcatraz first opened as a Federal Prison (prior to that time Alcatraz served as a military prison), Alcatraz inmates were not allowed to talk to one another, only when spoken to by an officer. These were the SILENT DAYS. Some years later, I asked an early inmate: “What happened to the Silent days, why were they stopped? The inmate related:

“We just got tired of that nonsense and one day we all decided to break the rule and begin talking and that ended the Silent days.“

Alcatraz was a self contained small village. We had a grocery store, a post office; we could fish whenever we wanted, large Striped Bass. We had our Social Hall with a 2-lane bowling alley, two pool tables, ping pong table and a snack bar for ice cream, sodas and sandwiches on the main floor, and an auditorium for dinners dancing and movies on Sunday nights on the second floor.

If you were age 16 or above, you had a key to the metal gate fenced in compound protecting the families. If you were under 16, you had to have an adult with you to get out of the compound, to travel around the island, go to the dock for fishing or visit the Social Hall.

But, again, opening up Alcatraz once again, sends a strong message to the world, If you go too far over the line, in our country, you could end up being sent directly to our notoriously scary prison Alcatraz for many years.

It would be a terrible mark on your record for the rest of your life. Your only recreation would be the YARD on weekends where you could gather for outdoor walled-in recreation overlooked by watch towers and guards with rifles.

President Trump is doing the right thing. He is putting illegal border crossings and heinous crimes by illegals on high alert. Cross us and you might very likely end up on Alcatraz. This will get national attention. It will certainly scare the Hell out of the bad people among us.