Prisons and Prisoners

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    Trump’s Idea to Turn Alcatraz Back Into a Prison Draws Criticism From Tourists

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    Boatloads of tourists traipsed around Alcatraz Island on Monday morning and peered into tiny prison cells, learning about the most notorious inmates who stayed there — and the ones who tried to escape.The tour was standard at the revered San Francisco attraction, save for one topic that simply could not be avoided in the conversations echoing off the old cellblock walls.Can you believe that President Trump wants to convert Alcatraz back into a federal prison?The morning tour groups were full of international travelers, and many of them had received phone alerts about Trump’s plan or read news reports over breakfast. Some wondered if they might actually be among the last visitors allowed to wander the island. But nobody seemed to think the idea was nearly as brilliant as Mr. Trump thought it was.“I thought it was a joke,” said Philipp Neumann, who was visiting from Germany. “It’s a ruin, isn’t it, more or less?”A ruin, yes, with some buildings deteriorating so badly they no longer have roofs or complete walls. The cells have broken toilets, if they have any at all, with no running water or sewage system.The exterior walls of the cellblocks are so weak that they are reinforced with netting to prevent chunks of concrete from crumbling onto tourists’ heads. Bird deposits coat much of the island. All supplies from food to fuel must be brought in by boat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Says He Wants Alcatraz Restored as a Prison

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      The project would be extraordinarily expensive at a time when the administration already plans to cut billions of dollars from the Justice Department’s budget.President Trump said on Sunday that he wanted federal law enforcement agencies to work on restoring Alcatraz, now a museum, to a functioning maximum-security prison.Repeating one of his constant refrains that the United States had become a dangerous, lawless place, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that he wanted Alcatraz, an island in San Francisco Bay, to be enlarged and rebuilt “to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders. We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our country illegally.”It was not immediately clear how his musing could be put into action, given that any such project would be extraordinarily expensive and that the administration already planned to cut billions of dollars from the Justice Department budget.Mr. Trump said he had instructed the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department to work on his idea, along with the F.B.I. — a curious choice given that the bureau plays no role in incarcerating people convicted of crimes.A reopened Alcatraz, Mr. Trump wrote, would “serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice.” The prison captured the public imagination as the home of the “worst of the worst” until it was closed in 1963 and eventually turned into a popular museum attraction.In addition to holding the gangster known as “Machine Gun Kelly” and Al Capone — whose multiple indictments Mr. Trump often mentioned on the campaign trail to describe himself as unfairly persecuted — Alcatraz is most famous for the escape of three men in 1962. They were never found, and it remains unclear whether they survived the swim from the island, which is more than a mile from shore in cold water with strong currents. Today, Alcatraz is best known as a damp, frigid and nostalgic staple of tourist packages and children’s field trips.By comparison, the current federal super-maximum security prison in Florence, Colo., has never had an inmate escape.In California, Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator representing San Francisco, called Mr. Trump’s idea “absurd on its face” and the latest example of what he called the president’s “continuing unhinged behavior.”A spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom laughed when asked about the president’s order. “Looks like it’s Distraction Day again in Washington, D.C.,” Izzy Gardon, the governor’s director of communications, said.Mr. Gardon pointed out that it had been more than six decades since Alcatraz operated as a prison, and that turning it back into a facility to house inmates would take many years and significant federal investment at a time when the president has said he wants to slash spending.Maggie Haberman More

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      Attackers Target Prisons in France, Burning Vehicles and Firing Shots

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      The office of France’s counterterrorism prosecutor said it would begin an investigation into the violence. The justice minister blamed drug traffickers.Attackers targeted a prison near the French port city of Toulon overnight Monday to Tuesday, burning vehicles and firing shots at its walls, French authorities and a union said on Tuesday, adding that this was part of a series of attacks on the country’s prisons.There were no reports of casualties. A union for prison workers, FO Justice, posted photos on X, formerly Twitter, of bullet holes in prison walls, saying that prisons had been attacked in the north, center and south of the country.The office of France’s counterterrorism prosecutor said it would begin an investigation into the violence, which it said started on Sunday. The justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, said he would visit the Toulon-La Farlède prison on Tuesday in support of the officers there.Bullet holes in a wall of the Toulon-La Farlède prison on Tuesday.Miguel Medina/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Darmanin suggested that drug traffickers had organized the attacks. The French newspaper Le Monde said the attacks were coordinated and mentioned other incidents in Villepinte and Nanterre, both suburbs of Paris; Valence, a city in southern France; and the southern port city of Marseille.“Prisons are facing intimidation attempts ranging from the burning of vehicles to automatic gunfire,” Mr. Darmanin said in a post on social media. “The republic is confronted by drug trafficking and will take measures that will massively disrupt these criminal networks.”France’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, condemned the attacks, saying the prisons had been targeted by thugs, and ordered the authorities to reinforce security at prisons and protect their workers.France’s official prison watchdog warned in 2023 of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and violence in the country’s prisons. More

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      N.Y. Corrections Department Issues Ultimatum to Striking Officers

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      The department agreed to some of the officers’ demands but said that those who did not return to work on Friday would face disciplinary action and possible criminal charges.Corrections officers who staged unauthorized strikes that have sowed chaos across New York State’s prisons for the last two and a half weeks received an ultimatum on Thursday night: Return to work on Friday or face termination, disciplinary action and the possibility of criminal charges.In exchange for the officers’ returning to work, the state would place a 90-day pause on some provisions of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act, known as HALT, which limits the use of solitary confinement for inmates, Daniel F. Martuscello III, commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, said in a news conference Thursday night.The department will also create a committee to study the law, which many corrections officers say has made their jobs more dangerous and difficult.Striking officers have also complained about staffing shortages and forced overtime, with some being required to work 24-hour shifts. The shifts of workers who return to duty on Friday will be limited to 12 hours, Mr. Martuscello said. When all workers are back in place and the prisons return to normal operations, he said, workers will not be forced to work shifts longer than eight hours.Dozens of corrections officers and sergeants have been fired for participating in the illegal strikes, Jackie Bray, commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, said Thursday evening. Others who refuse to return to work on Friday will also be fired, and will face possible disciplinary action, civil contempt charges or criminal prosecution, Ms. Bray said.Those who return to work on Friday can avoid all of that, Ms. Bray said. Striking corrections officers and sergeants who already quit, who were fired, or who face contempt charges or other disciplinary actions will have their records swept clean and their jobs reinstated, but only if they accept the terms offered Thursday night.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Baltimore State’s Attorney to Withdraw Motion to Vacate Adnan Syed’s Conviction

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      The case of Mr. Syed, who has spent decades in prison for the murder of his high school girlfriend, was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial.”The Baltimore City state’s attorney announced on Tuesday that his office would withdraw a motion to vacate the conviction against Adnan Syed, who has spent decades in prison while fighting charges that he had killed his high school girlfriend, Hae Min Lee.Mr. Syed’s case was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial,” which presented new evidence and led to a swell of interest in the case. The previous Baltimore prosecutor had asked a judge to overturn the conviction in 2022, citing issues with initial evidence and other possible suspects.Though the charges against Mr. Syed were dropped that year, his conviction was later reinstated and Maryland’s highest court ordered a redo of the hearing that freed him.In a statement, the Baltimore City state’s attorney, Ivan J. Bates, said that his office had determined that the motion to vacate the conviction by his predecessor contained “falsehoods and misleading statements.”“I did not make this decision lightly, but it is necessary to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system,” Mr. Bates said.The release of “Serial” in 2014 raised doubts about the facts around the case. The podcast was downloaded more than 100 million times in its first year and brought national public attention to Mr. Syed’s case. (In 2020, The New York Times Company bought Serial Productions, the company behind the podcast.)This is a developing story. More

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      Inmate Dies at N.Y. Prison as Corrections Officers’ Strike Continues

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      The 61-year-old man was found unresponsive in his cell at Auburn Correctional Facility, one of dozens of state prisons where corrections officers have walked off the job over working conditions.An inmate at a New York State prison was pronounced dead on Saturday after being found unresponsive in his cell, state officials said.The inmate, Jonathan Grant, 61, was found on Saturday morning at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Cayuga County, just west of Syracuse, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.Security and medical workers at the prison and a member of the National Guard tried to revive him but were unsuccessful, said Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the corrections department.The cause of Mr. Grant’s death is under investigation. He had been unwell, according to two prisoners at Auburn and another person who reviewed information about Mr. Grant’s health. That person said Mr. Grant had had several strokes: At least five were documented, including at least one in the past few weeks. The two prisoners said Mr. Grant had asked for medical help days earlier but had been brushed off. The corrections department did not respond to questions about Mr. Grant’s health before his death.Mr. Grant entered custody in 2011 and was serving a sentence of 34 to 40 years for first-degree rape and burglary, Mr. Mailey said.His death comes amid mounting tension and public scrutiny of the state’s prison system. Corrections officers at dozens of facilities, including Auburn, have continued wildcat strikes for days — without their union’s authorization and in defiance of a judge’s order — to protest what they say are dangerous working conditions, severe staffing shortages and forced overtime. Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, deployed National Guard soldiers to act as replacement workers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Sunday Read: ‘What Happened When America Emptied Its Youth Prisons’

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      Listen and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioWhen David Muhammad was 15, his mother moved from Oakland, Calif., to Philadelphia with her boyfriend, leaving Muhammad in the care of his brothers, ages 20 and 21, both of whom were involved in the drug scene. Over the next two years, Muhammad was arrested three times — for selling drugs, attempted murder and illegal gun possession.For Muhammad, life turned around. He wound up graduating from Howard University, running a nonprofit in Oakland called the Mentoring Center and serving in the leadership of the District of Columbia’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. Then he returned to Oakland for a two-year stint as chief probation officer for Alameda County, in the same system that once supervised him.Muhammad’s unlikely elevation came during a remarkable, if largely overlooked, era in the history of America’s juvenile justice system. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of young people incarcerated in the United States declined by an astonishing 77 percent. Can that progress be sustained — or is America about to reverse course and embark on another juvenile incarceration binge?There are a lot of ways to listen to ‘The Daily.’ Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Frannie Carr Toth, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, and Krish Seenivasan. More

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      Nine-Month Manhunt for French Fugitive Finally Produces an Arrest

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      A French convict was arrested in Romania months after he had been freed in a brazen daytime ambush that killed two prison guards, authorities said.A French inmate who fled police after armed assailants attacked a prison convoy in May was apprehended in Romania, French officials said Saturday. His capture ended a monthslong hunt for the man, whose violent escape resulted in the deaths of two prison guards.French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau confirmed in a statement on X that Mohamed Amra, the man who was whisked away by two gunmen in a brazen daytime attack, had been taken into custody with the cooperation of the Romanian government.President Emmanuel Macron hailed his capture as “a tremendous success,” and thanked investigators who had been tracking Mr. Amra “for months and months.” He added: “I am thinking of the families of the prison staff he had killed.”The Paris prosecutor’s office said the man arrested was “very likely” to be Mr. Amra and that investigators were working to conduct the necessary verifications.Violent prison breaks are rare in France. The two prison guards were the first to be killed in the line of duty in 32 years, and the case raised uncomfortable questions about France’s overburdened prison system and whether authorities had fully grasped how dangerous the inmate, a violent criminal known as La Mouche, or The Fly, was.He had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for burglary, one of numerous convictions for crimes including extortion and assault. But he was also under investigation on more serious charges — in Marseille, in connection with a kidnapping and homicide and in Rouen, in connection with an attempted homicide and extortion case.An undated photo of Mohamed Amra.InterpolFrench news outlets had reported that Mr. Amra had been involved in international drug trafficking and organized crime, but Laure Beccuau, the top Paris prosecutor, said at a news conference in May that Mr. Amra had no drug-related convictions.Officials have not released details about the investigation into the other people involved in the brutal ambush. During the May attack, assailants rammed a police van carrying Mr. Amra and then hooded men with automatic weapons circled the van, firing bullets into the vehicle for over two minutes.The attackers fled in stolen cars that were later found burned. The attack, which came as France was trying to project an image of law and order ahead of the Paris Olympics, was captured on video by security cameras and bystanders, and videos were later shared on X.It occurred on the same day that a Senate committee completed a report on rampant drug trafficking in France and recommended the creation of a French equivalent to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.France has been faced with a rise in drug violence and crime, not limited to traditional hot spots or big cities.A 2024 Senate report found that “the intensification of trafficking in the rural areas and the moderate-sized cities” had come with particularly brutal violence.Aurelien Breeden More

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      Prison Officials Detail Treatment of Trans Inmates Under Trump Gender Order

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      The federal Bureau of Prisons is banning the use of preferred pronouns, stopping special pat-down procedures and rejecting underwear requests from transgender prisoners.The Bureau of Prisons on Friday laid out strict new guidelines for the treatment of transgender inmates to comply with President Trump’s executive order on gender recognition, including ending special procedures for pat-down searches and barring prisoners from purchasing the underwear of their choice.The guidelines, dated Feb. 21 and obtained by The New York Times, show the extraordinary steps that the federal government will have to take to comply with the president’s edict that there are only two sexes, established at conception, and that men who “self-identify as women” pose a threat to the safety of women.The prison memo was issued on the same day that a new group of transgender women rushed to court to try to stop their transfer from all-female prisons to all-male facilities, saying that the move would place them at an elevated risk of physical and sexual violence. Already, a preliminary injunction issued Feb. 18 had blocked the transfer of three transgender women to male prisons.But the new lawsuit said the bureau informed the trans women not participating in earlier suits that they were to be transferred to male prisons “imminently.”The Bureau of Prison’s two-page memo details the treatment expected of transgender inmates at length. The guidelines require prison staff to refer to inmates by “their legal name or pronouns corresponding to their biological sex.”It said that transgender women would no longer be shielded from pat-down searches by male guards and that they would no longer be permitted to buy bras and other women’s clothing at the commissary. Public funds would no longer be used to purchase items that bind breasts, remove hair or allow trans men to use urinals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More