Charlie Hopkins, one of the last living to have served time in Alcatraz, San Francisco’s notorious island prison, has dismissed President Donald Trump’s order that the jail be reopened.
“I don’t think he wants to reopen it, he’s trying to draw attention to the crime rate,” Hopkins, now in his 90s, told ABC7 New York.
“When I was on Alcatraz, a rat couldn’t survive.”
Hopkins, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, who was hailed in his youth as a Golden Gloves boxer, was sentenced to 17 years behind bars in 1952 for his part in a robbery ring responsible for a string of carjackings.
He served 11 years in jail – three of which were spent at Alcatraz, where he was known as Inmate #1186 – before reforming and finding work as a carpet fitter and then as a hospital security guard.
Later in life, Hopkins became a pen pal of the infamous Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, another Alcatraz veteran, a story he shared in his memoir Hard Time (2019) and in the TV series Alcatraz: The Last Survivor (2020).
Despite Hopkins’ scepticism, the president appeared to be in deadly earnest when he posted on Truth Social over the weekend: “REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!
“For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering.
“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.”
He added that he would be directing the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, the FBI and Homeland Security “to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
The California maximum security penitentiary was opened in 1934 but closed again in 1963 after it was found to be three times more expensive to run than other jails and too costly to maintain, not least because of the extreme weather it was exposed to from the Pacific.
The facility has since enjoyed a second act as a lucrative tourist attraction, with visitors drawn by its reputation acquired during its three decades of service, when it housed legendary criminals such as Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, “Creepy” Alvin Karpis, and Robert Stroud, a psychopathic amateur ornithologist known as “the Birdman of Alcatraz.”
One of the first to reject Trump’s suggestion was former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco resident, who wrote on X: “The president’s proposal is not a serious one.”
On Tuesday, Florida Democrat Rep. Jared Moskowitz ridiculed Trump in the House by calling the plan “just another distraction to divert attention away from the tariffs, rising prices, or the struggle on Main Street.”
Moskowitz went on to suggest that the president had gotten the idea from watching reruns of old movies on late-night television.
“Perhaps he was watching Escape from Alcatraz,” he suggested, referring to Don Siegel’s 1979 Clint Eastwood hit.
“The funny part about that is that it was actually on television in South Florida. It was on PBS South Florida over the weekend when Trump was at Mar-a-Lago. In fact, he made his announcement just hours after it aired.”
The congressman’s reference to the scheduling is correct.
A number of tourists visiting the prison this week sounded out by ABC were equally withering, with one commenting: “I think it’s one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard in my life.
“It would cost billions to refit this building. It’s not even earthquake proof.”
But U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, for one, has defended the idea, telling Larry Kudlow on Fox Business the venture would yield “cost savings”, without explaining how, and insisting it would serve as a powerful deterrent to would-be criminals.
