”BREAK the rules and you go to prison. Break the prison rules and you go to Alcatraz.”
Those words, origin unknown, formed one of the many quotable quotes printed on banners which greeted visitors who assembled at a pier in San Francisco for their trip to the jailhouse that was once home to the most hardened criminals in the United States.
Almost 1.5 million people annually would take the 15-minute ferry ride to the island or The Rock to check out its grim history when it was a prison that housed notorious convicts such as Al Capone.
Visitors like Californian retiree Jaime Ashh had been there on four occasions, each time when he was hosting friends or relatives who were on vacation to the Golden State.
“It is a good place to take people, as long as I don’t have to stay there although it is a 'nice hotel',” he joked.
Visits to the jailhouse were intriguing, he said. “You get an idea what solitary confinement is all about.”
He named a 1962 film, “Birdman of Alcatraz.” which starred Burt Lancaster about convicted murderer Robert Franklin Stroud that had added mystique to the Alcatraz.
“Apparently, he wasn’t a completely bad guy. Some people say he was a real psychopath,” he said.
Of course, the other famous movie was Clint Eastwood's “Escape from Alcatraz” in 1979 about three prisoners who supposedly broke out from the penitentiary.
Ike Newman, a volunteer who briefs tourists to the island, said the question most frequently posed to him was: “Did anyone actually succeed in escaping from what was once known as the most secure prison?”
Somehow, the answer remains vague. According to its official leaflet, 36 prisoners attempted to seek freedom throughout the 29 years that the jail was in operation.
“All but five were recaptured or otherwise accounted for. Three who were unaccounted participated in the same breakout, the June 1962 escape, immortalised in the movie 'Escape from Alcatraz'.”
As for a brief history of the island, war prisoners were sent there back in 1861 but it was not until 1912 that a cell house was constructed there. Its reputation was carved during the 29 years it served as a federal prison from 1934 to 1963.
For comparison’s sake, Malaysia’s own Pudu Prison is much older. Built in 1895, it was shut down only in 1996 with its fair share of infamy, courtesy of convicts such Botak Chin.
Back then, the 101-year-old Pudu Prison was a major feature in the city life of Kuala Lumpur.
At Alcatraz, visitors pay US$24.50 for a self-guided audio tour that takes them down memory lane of the cell house, containing voices of former convicts and correctional officers.
Check out the guard tower, the place where correctional officers spent hours of loneliness keeping a lookout while on duty there.
More importantly, visitors can see those darkened cells, reserved for disruptive inmates who used to be confined there day and night.
These “holes” were meant for those with severe disciplinary problems.
The punishment included total darkness captivity for a certain number of days.
The tour would also walk you through the processes when an inmate was first sent to Alcatraz where he was handcuffed and shackled and then asked to shower and given the blue uniform.
To quote Al Capone, “it looks like Alcatraz has got me licked.”
