ALCATRAZ PRISON

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 25, 29 July 1939, Page 8

ALCATRAZ PRISON

ABANDONMENT LIKELY

Alcatraz, the island prison in San Francisco Bay, should be ultimately abandoned, and its population of hardened criminals moved to a new security penitentiary in some isolated part of the United States, Attorney-General Murphy urges, says a Washington message to the "New York Times."

"The Rock," as Alcatraz is called, is a "place of horror," detrimental to San Francisco, and exercises a depressing and wicked psychology on the inmates, the Attorney-General added at a Press conference.,,- He drew this conclusion after his recent trip to ■ the Pacific Coast, where he inspected Alcatraz, he stated* Plans to elimirii|fe Alcatraz from the Federal prison system were still nebulous, the Attorney-General remarked, j Two or three yesfrs might elapse before a change, he said, adding that a study of the situation by Department of Justice officials had been ordered. ! Particular objections to Alcatraz j existed because of its narrow bounds, whei-ein nearly 300 men were confined without opportunity for farm labour, the Attorney-General said. Alcatraz was included as a prison for desperate offenders under the regime '■ of former Attorney-General Cummings, who held it to be an essential part of the Government penal system. Mr. Cummings originated the idea in a memorandum in August, 1933, and a year later the army evacuated its former post and the prisoners moved in. Only about 300 out of the 16,000 to 18,000 men in Federal penitentiaries were confined on the island. "PSYCHOLOGY SEEMS BAD." "The whole psychology of Alcatraz seems bad," Mr. Murphy commented. "The psychology builds up a sinister and vicious influence among the prisoners. It would be difficult to have it otherwise there. '"It is a great injustice, too, to San Francisco, to have that place of horror on a rock in the bay, and at the doorstep of the city. I don't think it's a good thing; it's a bad thing. • "I don't know what can be done immediately, but I am .expressing my view of it." Rehabilitation of the desperate I criminals at Alcatraz could be better! effected inside some walled prison I where there was a chance to use "a plough," Mr. Murphy asserted. He conceded the need of having a penitentiary comparable to the former army post, but in another location. . j "It is necessary to have a place like j Alcatraz to break up a crowd that con- j spires to kill or murder, to break up little cliques such as might exist at Atlanta or Leavenworth," he stated. "They have to be broken up and sent away. But a new institution should be without the atmosphere' and some of the disadvantages of Alcatraz." Someone called Mr. Murphy's attention- to the opinion of Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that hardened offenders should be treated with the utmost severity. "I don't want to discuss Mr. Hoover's philosophy. No one has a greater admiration for his work than I." Mr. Murphy answered. Conditions tending to make prisoners "sheer crazy" were more evident at Alcatraz than elsewhere, the Attor-ney-General stated. He was, he said, satisfied with the administration of Warden James A. Johnston at Alcatraz. reiterating that the trouble was with the theory of the institution itself. "The immediate thing to do about Alcatraz is to perfect its management in every way." he asserted. "There cannot be any change from Alcatraz until we get a place that would be an advantage over it. That would take considerable time." ■