Crime And Punishment - Alcatraz 9/29/2007 9:41:23 AM
September 8, one of my brothers and I took the Alcatraz tour, a defunct maximum security prison since its closure on March 21, 1963 (after serving 29 years as a federal penitentiary), and which is about 1 1/4 miles off San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf area. I’d been curious about the prison for years, seen movies about it, documentaries about it, so it was quite something to finally see first hand. My brother and I walked around the place, then took the self-guided tour (free with tour purchase) inside the B, C, and D cell blocks, where the prisoners were kept. Things most people might not know about it is that Alcatraz (which is a cool name; I have to admit I’ve always thought the name pretty gnarly) was used as a fort during Civil War (never fired a “shot in anger”), a small group of Native Americas occupied it in the ‘60s as a way of reclaiming portions of the country stolen from them, there were no gas chambers, and the “Birdman of Alcatraz,” Robert Stroud, who was in for some really nasty murder, never had any birds at Alcatraz--he’d had them at another facility he’d had the pleasure of “visiting.”
I’d heard there were those who’d seen and heard ghosts there, but I saw none--just lots of tourists packed into the same limited area, all walking around with blank looks on our faces like conscious zombies, as we took the self-guided recorded tour. But as I walked throughout the place, as I always do in places of great history, I tried to “get into” the feel of the place, from a person’s point of view of who lived and worked there. Tried to feel what it would have felt like were I to have been there as a prisoner or guard. Tried to feel what it felt like to have been one of several guards who’d been captured by prisoners during a riot, shoved into a tiny cell--and subsequently murdered. Tried to feel what it felt like to have been a prisoner sent to that island to find it my new home for however many years. It was definitely a place of grim despair, a dark, empty place. A place of rules and restrictions. Resignation. One long day at a time. Doing what you were told. Lots of thinking. Lots of time perhaps regretting whatever was done that would have put them there. Perhaps the most depressing part would be the lack of hope in a place like this. What do you have to look forward to? A brawl? Escape? Time out in the wind-blown “rec area” with gulls and terns (I’m guessing they were) screeching above? In a place like that all you got is time....
But the place was down-right spooky, whether or not I saw any “official” ghosts, There were plenty of “unofficial” ghosts one could easily pick up on by imagining all the lives lived and now long gone...in not only the cell blocks, but the decrepit buildings all over the island...from the former-but-now-gutted-and-skeletal Post Exchange and Officer’s Club held together by a prayer, the old and abandoned Store/warehouse, Power Plant and Model and New Industries Buildings (this was a REAL creepy looking building, this last one), some of which would greatly lend themselves to horror movies....
And I say it again: it was depressing...especially to imagine this as your life, even your job. To be a prison guard you definitely have to be a certain type of person. The cells in B and C blocks were small, 6-by-9-by-something, while those in isolation (D block) were slightly larger. It was almost too much to imagine, and hard to put into words the feeling I got from being there. Life had to have become...two-dimensional. Reeking with despair. Some might say those put there got what they deserved, and that might be, but what a miserable and disheartening way to exist as a human being. All you know are bars. Confinement. The worst of society--or those who have COMMITTED the worst acts upon society. What kind of an outlook does that give a person? How does that change you? How does that help or educate a prisoner to become a better person if there is any chance of change? If that’s all you know...how can a person ever “right” him or herself?
The whole topic of our prison systems can be quite controversial, I know, but the fact of the matter is, there are those out there who break our rules, and in some very heinous ways, and they do have to be dealt with, so how do you do it? Are our current prison systems really the answer? All I know was that as my brother and I walked those grim halls and explored that little chunk of rock, it gave me lots to think about.
Which, I guess, is what a “penitentiary” was originally intended to do.
