Trump wants to reopen Alcatraz. What about WA’s federal island prison?

BELLINGHAM – President Donald Trump recently floated the idea of reopening San Francisco’s Alcatraz federal penitentiary. Could he reopen Washington’s abandoned island prison?

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said he was directing the Bureau of Prisons, Department of Justice, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security to reopen, enlarge and rebuild the former federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island, which closed in 1963 and is now a tourist attraction managed by the National Park Service. Questioned about the decision by reporters on Monday, Trump said Alcatraz is a symbol of law and order, according to PBS News footage.

Located west of Steilacoom in Puget Sound, Pierce County’s McNeil Island measures about 7 square miles; its 27-acre prison opened as a federal penitentiary in 1875, 14 years before Washington became a state, according to the Washington State Department of Corrections website. Chris Wright, communications director at the Washington State Department of Corrections, told the News Tribune via email that McNeil Island was officially deeded to Washington state in 1984.

In 1981, the facility became the state-operated, minimum to medium security McNeil Island Corrections Center and remained as the oldest prison in the Northwest and the last U.S. island-based prison until it closed in April 2011, according to the state DOC website.

Asked if the federal government could reopen the facility, Wright said in a follow-up email that it’s not out of the question, though it hasn’t been proposed.

Wright told the News Tribune that the original deed requires the state of Washington to have an operational prison on the island, meaning the state has been in violation of the deed for the last 14 years since MICC closed.

“In theory, the feds could take the island back,” he said .

The DOC website states that the DOC’s Industries program is responsible for general island maintenance for Washington state to stay in compliance with the federal deed. Despite this program, however, Wright said via email, the fact that the prison has closed is enough for federal authority to cite noncompliance with the deed.

According to the state DOC website, the prison was declared an official United States prison in 1904, but had served as a federal penitentiary for more than 100 years before it was leased to the state of Washington in 1981. Wright told the News Tribune on the phone Tuesday that the McNeil Island Penitentiary held notorious inmates such as cult leader Charles Manson and the infamous “Birdman of Alcatraz” Robert Stroud.

MICC’s 2011 closure was brought on by financial struggles following the 2008 recession, Wright said. Although other U.S. island prisons like Rikers Island and Terminal Island remain operational, bridges connect them to the mainland; MICC was the last island prison that could truly only be reached by plane or ferry, he added. Maintaining an island facility makes everything – from transporting food and medicine to maintaining infrastructure – much more expensive, he said.

“Inherent costs that come with running an island facility are very high,” he said. “… The state decided to shut it down in the wake of the financial challenges and it’s been mothballed ever since.”

Today, McNeil Island also holds the state’s Special Commitment Center, a separate facility run by the state Department of Social and Health Services that serves as a place to civilly commit sex offenders that the state has identified as “sexually violent predators” after the completion of their prison sentences.

The prison is currently unmaintained, closed to the public and there are no plans to reopen it, Wright said. He said the facility has fallen into disrepair since it closed in 2011, and unlike Alcatraz – which hosts frequent tours – safety concerns, including unstable infrastructure and asbestos, keep visitors limited to those associated with the state DOC, Coast Guard patrols or state DSHS operations.

“I can’t imagine that the state would consider opening it again,” Wright said.