Informative Speech Outline on Alcatraz Essay

Have you ever wondered what the worst prison would be like. Alcatraz was the worst prison ever it had the most baddest criminals ever. Alcatraz was nicknamed "the rock" because it was out in the middle of San Francisco Bay. It was also thought that no one could escape the prison because of all the dangers. Alcatraz opened on August 11, 1934 and closed on March 21, 1963. Alcatraz had some of the worst criminals some of the key moments were when Al Capone the worst bad guy came to Alcatraz, it also effects the people today because they see how bad it was for the prisoners to escape and have to stay there.

Security in Alcatraz was intense, and escaping was nearly impossible. The idea was maximum custody. The prisoners were on a strict schedule and were constantly being watched by the correctional officers. Official counts were held every 30 minutes during the day. (need source here) They were locked behind doors at all times, and the bars were tool-resistant.

Alcatraz was finally running in business, and all the worst prisoners were being sent there. All the inmates had a quick idea on how cummings was running Alcatraz. You couldn’t talk or you would be sent to the “hole” for a couple of weeks. The hole is “isolation”. Al Capone [the most famous gangster] was sent for the for a lot of times. And he went crazy because he kept making and remaking his bed. There was many escape attempts at alcatraz but none of them were successful. Two of them were reported missing.

After listening to and or reading the transcripts of Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax by Michael Montgomery, one gets a glimpse of prison life, sociological issues inmates and staff face, and the subculture of prison life faced by staff and prisoners alike on a daily basis. However, instead of delving completely in to the situational circumstances of prisoner life, it is more important to understand the history of this Supermax prison and why it was constructed to begin with. Further, it is important to understand the philosophy of the need for the Secure Housing Unit, which is the most secure and isolated portion of Pelican Bay Prison.

Summary: Chapter 2 discusses correctional history. Two French visitors were able to compare and contrast their experience in an American prison. Early punishment in the western countries consisted of whipping, branding, mutilation, drowning, suffocation, execution, and banishment. The first correctional facility were jails and influenced by Catholic Churches in the middle age times. This chapter introduces two individuals that were very influential to the correction system, John Howard, and William Penn. John Howard could persuade the government to lighten the punishment, separate jails for females and males, provide sanitary, food, and water. William Penn served jail time but was released due to wealth. Later in life he was given the opportunity to propose laws & he used this moment to fix how inmates are treated. He was against harsh punishment.

In 1790 The Walnut Street Jail became the first prison in the United States by converting a wing of the Walnut Street Jail for use in housing sentenced criminals for corporal punishment (Seiter, 2011). The philosophy or objective for the Walnut Street Jail was hard labor, strict discipline, solitary and silent confinement, and religious study, as a result prisoners were kept separate and silent. Prisoners were also masked as moved throughout the prison to avoid other prisoners identifying one another; they were given work, such as handicrafts during day and read the Bible and did penancing in the evenings (Seiter, 2011). When the state of Pennsylvania opened its’ first two prisons they adopted the Walnut Street Jail model of design and operations, which soon became known as the Pennsylvania system. As issues started resulting from the Pennsylvania system such as poor productivity of goods for resale; impossible to keep prisoners from seeing one another; too expensive to maintain as more staff were needed, and some prisoners becoming mentally ill; prison operators started searching for new ways to accommodate these issues. After acknowledging the doom of the Pennsylvania system, a new system that allowed prisoners to congregate during the day and remain separate and silent at other times known as the Auburn system.

Soon after undergoing procedures they found out people where going insane and even taking their own lives. These customs of confinement where retired for a long time until about the 1920’s when they made a comeback at Alcatraz off the San Francisco Bay. The jail is known for housing some of the most notorious prisoners in the country and they wanted to keep the upper hand and not have anything go wrong. They created a whole prison block called D-Block which housed dozens of prisoners in confinement.If you were to break any rules while in confinement you would get sent to the “hole” which was worse than solitary confinement because you would not receive any clothes or any food other than bread and water. (http://www.alcatraz101.com) Robert Stroud was one one of the prisoners at Alcatraz in his lifetime he served 42 years in solitary confinement. While in another jail he was confined and found a group of birds which he housed later on in his years in jail he publish a couple books one called Diseases of Canaries. He was a very intelligent man with an IQ of 134 but while being looked up he was later diagnosed a psychopath.(Robert Stroud/wikipedia.org) Many prisoners go into solitary confinement perfectly fine and come out different due to the lack of human

The most notorious people who were a danger to society would be sent Alcatraz. Alcatraz is famous for holding Al Capone who was a famous leader of an Italian mafia at the time, Arthur Baker who was charged with conspiracy of kidnapping, Ellsworth Johnson who bootleg items such as alcohol in Harlem, and so on. On average, Alcatraz held around 268 prisoners a year and did not once get close to their maximum number of 336 inmates. The correctional system that the prison used was to isolate them from society without any contact. At the time the goal was to punish offenders more harshly instead of rehabilitating the prisoners like any other federal prisons in the United States at the time.

But before they could allow the prisoners to transfer they had to remodel to make the prison a maximum security prison. When they were able to transfer, the hired guards each guard was assigned 3 prisoners and each prisoner had their own cell. Alcatraz was known as the “prisons system prison”. Alcatraz was a place where some of the most critical and troublesome inmates were held, they were given scarce privileges in order to be taught how to act and follow the rules. The redesign of Alcatraz included tougher iron bars, and series of strategically placed guard towers. They created a more severe set of rules that needed to be followed, they also did many checks on the inmates during the day. Some would say escape was almost impossible. On average Alcatraz held up to 260 to 275 inmates at a time. In total Alcatraz housed a total of 1,576

4.The prison guards look after the convicts that behave good could apply or petition the governaur to have thier families brought out from England and in some case , they could be assigned to work for thier free settler families. Convicts who work hard could obtain their ' ticket of leave '. The prison guard were very strict on the convicts , thier punishment were brutal. Convicts who disobey or continues to cause trouble could be sent to more isolared prison or to be killed.

Alcatraz was introduced as a prison in the Civil War to hold captured men. But was later taken over by the United Sates Department of Justice (U.D.J) because it was just abandoned after the war. Eventually it was turned into a prison to hold men that normal community prisons could not hold. In the 1930’s a crime wave hit the United States and Alcatraz was about to become a full house. During that time escape became a bigger problem due to the size of the prison and the lack of guards in the jail. There were over 14 escape attempts involving over 30 men. Twenty were caught and eight killed over a period of years. Alcatraz finally hired enough men to secure the jail to the highest level. 1 man by the name of Frank Morris proved that was not

Alcatraz was a prison, that was in use from 1934 to 1963. It housed some of the world´s most dangerous criminals over the span of twenty-nine years. I chose to write about Alcatraz because I like the history of weird and creepy places, which Alcatraz is. Alcatraz is creepy because there are many claims that people have heard the cries and moans in cell blocks A, B, and C. I also chose to write about this because I wanted to learn more about Alcatraz. Someday I want to go there. This essay will explain why an Army prison was turned into a federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island, who were some famous inmates that once occupied a cell there and, it will detail some of the attempted escapes from Alcatraz.

Alcatraz was great in many aspects but prisoners hated the rule of silence. Many prisoners thought this rule was harsh and were disciplined for even minor violations. In response to this they would empty their toilets and talk through the pipes. Later the rule was discontinued in 1930's. Alcatraz also got very cold during the winter. The cells on the ground floor were the coldest and many prisoners requested to be moved to a higher cell to be warmer. Even with these poor conditions Alcatraz was not always home to the worst

Alcatraz Island has quite a distinct history. Many people know that Alcatraz served as a federal prison, but most are reluctant to know that this island served as fort. Built before the Civil War, it served two main purposes. First, that it was to guard the San Francisco bay area from enemy ships against a foreign invasion, and second, to hold hostage prisoners of war or POW's as they were called. In this report, I'll show you how this fortress came to be a federal prison, why it is no longer in operation today, and most importantly, to show why it was built in the first place. When the great "Gold Rush" of 1849 first started, California grew from what would be considered a small, unpopulated state, into

3. The central theme or issue in this series is the issue of the harshness inside a prison and the dehumanizing effect it has on the people inside the prison, it also shows that even in a "maximum security" prison there is illegal activities happening such and purchasing