Al Capone, “Machine Gun” Kelly and Robert “The Birdman” Stroud were few of many high profile inmates whom were housed and imprisoned on Alcatraz. In order to get to Alcatraz, you had to have committed a crime to get put into prison and then committed another crime while in prison. It was the prison for prisons. Alcatraz is an island off the East Coast of the United States in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. The island was initially put into use as a military fort and was also known to becoming a common nesting land for seabirds. The government took over the island in 1934 and then turned it into a penitentiary to contain those criminals whom had outbreak in the 1930’s. The building itself consisted of 600 cells with no contact to the outer …show more content…
There was also, of course, the holes they had dug up in their concrete cells using a spoon in order to wiggle their way out of their confinement. In the movie Escape from Alcatraz, starring Clint Eastwood, Morris was accurately portrayed as the keen and brilliant mastermind of this escape--one of the most famous prison escapes in history. It must have taken years and years of planning, and researchers today still are awed by the fact that this escape was allowed to …show more content…
Not only the risk of leaving the island and crossing the bay with fear of shark attacks, but the waters were rough and the temperatures dropped down to sometimes below fifty four degrees Fahrenheit, which is cold enough to catch hypothermia or any other diseases in that cold body temperature in under thirty minutes--less time it takes to reach any land. Researchers say it takes a professional swimmer to cross cold body waters like the bay in half an hour to an hour. (Heaton 4) Any other ammeauter or inexperienced swimmer would take possibly over an