Alcatraz Prison Essay

On June 11, 1962, three inmates at Alcatraz Federal Prison, Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin, were found missing from their cells to the shock of the prison guards and the world. After escaping the prison, they vanished nearly without a trace. Because they have not been seen or heard from since, most assumed they perished in the incredible escape attempt. However, after the combination of fifty years’ worth of evidence and a recent cooperation of the escapees’ family members with the FBI, new light has been shed on the case that many once considered cold. Using the evidence available, it can be concluded that the three prisoners successfully escaped from Alcatraz and survived.

Around the 1930s, America was struggling to deal with the overwhelming presence of organized crime. Mafias led by notorious gangsters such as Al Capone were especially prevalent, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was needing a new deterrent and punishment for these criminals. Their answer was Alcatraz, a maximum security prison designed to hold the “worst of the worst” criminals. A sentence to Alcatraz was meant

It consisted of three main parts: first break out of the cells, second get out of the prison, and finally escape the island itself. By this time in history, Alcatraz Federal Prison was already over 30 years old, and the salty air coming from the seawater that surrounded the prison had begun to corrode the concrete around the air ventilation system. Frank Morris noticed this, and began chiseling a hole around the ventilation grill in the back of his cell with a stolen kitchen spoon. He let his neighbor, Allan West, and the Anglin brothers in on the secret, and they began chiseling holes as well. They hid their work by creating a false grill that they painted to match the cell walls. This gave them access to a narrow utility corridor where they stashed all of their