The Issues with Reopening Alcatraz from an Abolitionist Perspective
While everyone is having fun joking about Trump’s wish to reopen Alcatraz, this is a good time to recommit to abolitionist principles about what the future of incarceration could look like.
Alcatraz is all over national news because of the Trump administration’s push to reopen it as a prison. Some say not to worry because it’s not a practical proposal while others, like the Standard’s now-deleted opinion piece about 20 people they’d lock up if they could, try to poke fun. The message seems to be, “Don’t take this seriously.”
We’re doing ourselves a disservice by not using this as a moment to discuss incarceration and humanitarian responses to violence and crime.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, “At Alcatraz, a prisoner had four rights: food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Everything else was a privilege that had to be earned. Some privileges a prisoner could earn included: working, corresponding with and having visits from family members, access to the prison library, and recreational activities such as painting and music.”
Painting, something so innately human it’s what we point to for evidence of our branch off from other apelike hominoids. Music, something we recognize in our mother’s wombs. Access to the library, something so fundamentally American it’s a shock to read of it as a privilege instead of a right.
The problem with reopening Alcatraz as a prison is not just logistical. Sure, it would be too expensive and difficult. That’s what Governor Newsom wants to focus on. But there’s something more fundamentally sick about it. This should be the moment to realize that they’ll use these tools against us. Any time the carceral state and police powers expand, it lays further groundwork for more mass incarceration and less justice.
Alcatraz has an important history as a site of occupation and a conversation starter for justice, especially for indigenous people. It’s critical that when we discuss Alcatraz, we also turn a sharp eye toward our own county jail and other sites of former and current incarceration.
111 Taylor: A Historically Significant Site
One such site is the building at 111 Taylor, which once housed Compton’s Cafeteria. It was not only a gathering space for queer and trans people, but the site of a pride riot that predates Stonewall.
Right now, advocates from TurkxTaylor, the Tenderloin Museum, the Compton’s X Coalition, and the Transgender Cultural District are all hopeful that a Wednesday hearing with SF Planning will allow them to eventually purchase the building. It’s currently used by Geo Group as a halfway house, and historians like Susan Stryker say that’s problematic:
“I just think it’s outrageous that this historically significant building that is the site of one of the most important acts of trans resistance to police repression and the carceral system, is now operated as a for-profit incarceration facility by Geo Group.” -Susan Stryker
According to a press release, “Until now, it has continued to function as a reentry site under GEO Group’s management, despite repeated violations, complaints, and failures to complete required zoning permits.” Supporters are “demanding that the City honor the site’s legacy as a birthplace of trans resistance — not allow it to remain in the hands of a carceral corporation.”
The good news is that momentum is building; on Wednesday, the Board of Appeals unanimously decided to let the Compton’x X Coalition formally appeal the current zoning. “This is a win for transparency, for history, and for the trans community,” says Chandra Laborde, who filed the jurisdiction request. “We now have the opportunity to make our full case before the City, and to demand that the legacy of Compton’s be honored, not erased.”
Because queer and trans youth often end up homeless, kicked out by their cruel and uninformed parents, they’re often forced to engage in risky behavior on the streets. This puts them at higher risk for becoming incarcerated. 31% of LGBTQ+ people in the United States have been in some form of incarceration in the last five years.
Current San Francisco Justice Issues
Trump’s dangerous rhetoric around Alcatraz should be a catalyst for San Francisco to reconsider what role we play in upholding the carceral state. Instead, noted ethics violator DA Brooke Jenkins is reportedly finding shortcuts to facilitate cooperating with ICE despite the City’s sanctuary status and acting without “any compassion.”
As reported last week, San Francisco Assistant Police Chief David Lazar said, “We will continue to arrest people… We’re not really concerned about jail overcrowding at this point. That’s not going to stop us from doing what we need to do.”
We need anti-racist and queer-focused organizing, not more police power. We need the restoration and permanent preservation of social services, not more funding for mall cops and police overtime. We need to bring the same energy we have against Trump to the violence that our very own local government is enacting upon San Franciscans. Our most vulnerable populations, including LGBTQ+ folks and immigrants, deserve more than what this news cycle is saying about Alcatraz.
Each injustice at the federal level has roots and mirrors in the Bay Area.
San Francisco Police Overtime Saga
This week, just two politicians voted against the expensive mistake of giving more taxpayer money for police overtime. Meanwhile, the mayor’s budget may end up defunding Muni, letting capital projects rot on the shelf while deferred maintenance makes things more dangerous, and penalizing nonprofits en masse for the sins of Nuru that haunt entire departments.
Those two are District 9 Sup. Jackie Fielder and District 10 Sup. Shamann Walton. Everyone else should shut up about Alcatraz and take a long, hard look at their own actions.
Poorly planned, overly expensive, and outlandish ideas for the Rock are already happening by overcrowding jails, spending more on criminalizing than housing or supporting people, and throwing anti-recidivism methods out the window and into the shark-infested waters of the San Francisco Bay.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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