The federal prisons office has a repair decline of $ 3 billion. Now it is also expected to re -open Alcatraz

Eleven deaths of inmates in less than two months. More than 4,000 vacancies. A repair decline of $ 3 billion.

And now, an impressive directive of President Donald Trump for the Federal Crisis Bureau of Prisons to “rebuild and open Alcatraz!” – the notorious prison On an island in San Francisco Bay that last kept the inmates More than 60 years ago.

Although the prisons office struggles with short staff, chronic violence and infrastructure in its current facilities, Trump has the agency to fulfill his vision of restarting the infamous inescapable prison known in films and pop culture as “The rock”.

Trump declaredIn a post of social media Sunday that a “substantially enlarged and rebuilt” Alcatraz will host the “most rugged and violent criminals” of the nation. “It will serve as a symbol of law, order and justice,” he wrote about social truth.

The recently appointed director of the prisons office, William K. Marshall III, said on Monday that the agency “would strongly pursue all the ways to support and implement the president’s agenda” and that he has ordered “an immediate evaluation to determine our needs and the next steps”.

“USP Alcatraz has a rich story. We hope to restore this powerful symbol of law, order and justice,” Marshall said in a statement, echoing Trump’s office. “We will work actively with our police and other federal partners to restore this important mission.”

Alcatraz was once an example

Alcatraz, an islet of 22 hectares (8.9 hectares) overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and the horizon of San Francisco, was once the jewel of the crown of the prison system and the home of some of the most notorious criminals in the country, including the Gangsters al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.

But the costs of repair and supply of decrease forced the Department of Justice to close the prison in 1963, only 29 years after its opening, and the prisons office has long been replaced by Alcatraz by modern penitentuces, including a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

The old and perhaps future penitentiary is now a popular tourist attraction and a national historical milestone. It is controlled by the Service of the National Park as part of the Gold Gold Golden Recreation Area, that is, the prisons office could be for a war interest if it is trying to eliminate control of the island.

The Trump Alcatraz Directive is another challenge for the prisons office, as it struggles to solve persistent problems while responding to President’s priorities about immigrant incarceration and arrest. The mission of the agency, as was redefined under Trump, includes thousands of immigration detainees under an agreement with the National Security Department.

Problems at the prisons office transcend administrations and facilities.

A continuousAssociated Press Researchhas discovered deep defects and previously not reported in the prisons office in recent years, includingWidespread criminal activity by employeestens ofescapethe free flow of guns, drugs and other smuggling, andUnderstaffing severeThis has made it difficult for emergencies to be answered.

Last year, then President Joe Biden signed a supervision of the Agency Law. It is still the largest agency in the Department of Justice, with more than 30,000 employees, 155,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $ 8 billion, but measures to reduce the Trump Administration’s cost reduction have eliminated some salary bonuses that were accredited to retain and attract new staff.

This has resulted in long extension shifts for some workers and the continued use of a policy known as an increase, where nurses, chefs, teachers and other workers have a duty to protect inmates.

The infrastructure is also wrapping. An official from the prisons office told Congress in an audience in February that more than 4,000 beds within the system, the equivalent of at least two complete prisons, are unusable due to dangerous conditions such as filtration or bankruptcy of ceilings, molds, asbestos or lead.

Deaths have affected the federal prison system

Since mid -March, 11 federal prisoners have died. They includeDavid Knezevicha 37 -year -old Florida businessman who was found dead on April 28 in aSuspicion suicideIn a federal prison in Miami. He was waiting for trial for allegations that he abducted and killed his strange wife in Spain.

And on April 24, Restament Jaabir Justice was killed in a fight at the Pollock Federal Penitentiary Center, Louisiana, where he fulfilled a sentence of almost 11 years for a sentence related to an armed robbery.

When Trump ordered the reopening of Alcatraz on Sunday, the correction officers in Miami’s same prison struggled to curb the spread of tuberculosis and Covid-19, isolating the inmates after trying positive for illness. Last month, immigration detainees from the facility started a fire sprinkler and flooded a cell during a long entry process.

In the meantime, about 30 kilometers (50 kilometers) to the east of Alcatraz, the Federal Correctional Institution of Dublin, California, has remained in the rantine for more than a year after the prisons office worked for the inmates as a result of rampant sexual abuse by employees, including the counselor.

In December, the agency made the permanent closureand hid six fields of prisons across the countryTo face “significant challenges, including a shortage of critical staff, rise infrastructure and limited budget resources.”

While Trump greets Alcatraz as a paragon of the appreciated past of the federal prison system, other facilities are reminders of their recent problems.

They include federal prison in Manhattan, which is leisure after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide there in 2019 exposed deep defects in their operations and a federal problem with problems in Brooklyn, where23 inmates have been chargedIn recent months, with crimes ranging from smuggling to a bag of Doritos to the stabbing last month of a man convicted of the slaughter of the legend of hip-hop Jam Master Jay.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

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