The National Prohibition In The 1920's

Things were really bad in 1920, when the National Prohibition Act was passed. The act made it illegal to drink, sell, or buy alcohol. This really enraged people, causing a huge crime surge. The law was passed to decrease crime, but the opposite happened. Alcohol was still being sold, made, and drunk. This surge created gangsters that ruled the cities. Those gangsters became richer and richer, more powerful and selfish. Some of the biggest gangsters didn’t still rule the streets, they ruled in jail too. They bribed guards, politician, and even police. On the other hand, they killed them too. While people lived in complete fear. Super- gangsters ruled everything, so someone thought it was time to change all that. All this caused the creation

A few things went wrong, which made people question how effective this prison really was. Afterall they couldn’t talk, if they did or disobeyed something else they had to go to a dark place. Called the hole, this entire place could make someone go crazy. Prisoners actually managed to escape, even the slightest wrong thing is a huge open door for escape. A couple people escaped, Teddy Cole, Ralph Roe,John Anglin, Clarence Anglin, Bernie Coy and Frank Morris. You may think, six people isn’t even that much. But it’s actually too many, one is too many. This was supposed to be the worlds toughest prison, mind-numbing, inescapable, horrible prison. Was it honestly, some people wondered what this prison really was. These prisoners escapes weren’t easy though. Teddy and Ralph sawed bars off, kicked glass, smashed locks, dropped 20 feet, and then dropped 30 into water. No one ever found the two again. This was only one attempt, about 30 years later, John, Clarence, and Frank escaped too. The dug holes through the walls in their cell, this was because the walls were worn down and could easily be chipped. From the guards counted heads, they made fake ones to replace them, they also made a fake air grate. Slowly chipping away the walls until they were done, they climbed behind the walls until they reached the roof. They floated away on a raincoat raft, and were never heard from or anything. No bodies of any

I personally don’t agree with the way things were done there anyways. Yes, it held prisoners, but it lost its purpose. The prisoners were put in another prison, so they weren’t anymore attendants of this place. But there was a really big reason The Rock was shut down, even bigger than what people honestly thought. “Alcatraz was too expensive to run. It cost twice as much as any other federal prison. Since Alcatraz was an island, all the supplies had to be bought over on boats. Even fresh drinking water arrived by boat.”. Another reason is that the Prohibition Act ended, the crime surge was over. People could relax more now, there weren’t anymore super-gangsters like there was, so it was kind of unnecessary. What happened to the once famous super-prison you may ask. Well the Sioux Indian Nation claimed this island for themselves, “ They said it was their birthright to inhabit the island.They used a treaty that was written in 1868 as their defense. The treaty said that the Sioux nation had rights to ‘any unused government land’. Alcatraz Island, they said, was now indeed unused government land.”. More than 400 Native Americans lived on the island, until President Nixon turned it into a national park. This made all the Sioux leave since the land was now being