Here's what DOGE ought to be asking: (1) How much will it cost to refurbish and rebuild Alcatraz after being closed since 1963 due to high operational costs? (2) Is it cheaper to maintain prisoners in our existing supermax style of prison, or is shipping food & supplies & guards out to Alcatraz cheaper?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but tRump's silence on them suggests the answers don't support re-opening Alcatraz.
Oh, wait, the Bureau of Prisons has this about the cost of Alcatraz:
On March 21, 1963, USP Alcatraz closed after 29 years of operation. It did not close because of the disappearance of Morris and the Anglins (the decision to close the prison was made long before the three disappeared), but because the institution was too expensive to continue operating. An estimated $3-5 million was needed just for restoration and maintenance work to keep the prison open. That figure did not include daily operating costs - Alcatraz was nearly three times more expensive to operate than any other Federal prison (in 1959 the daily per capita cost at Alcatraz was $10.10 compared with $3.00 at USP Atlanta). The major expense was caused by the physical isolation of the island - the exact reason islands have been used as prisons throughout history. This isolation meant that everything (food, supplies, water, fuel...) had to be brought to Alcatraz by boat. For example, the island had no source of fresh water, so nearly one million gallons of water had to be barged to the island each week. The Federal Government found that it was more cost-effective to build a new institution than to keep Alcatraz open.
@Mamapolo2016 Yes! You should listen. I have had a long productive life. I have spent 8 years in the military, 1 year in prison, and 40 years in commercial construction in Las Vegas. The past 20 owning the construction company I built from the ground up.
A lot of hard knocks and life lessons. But hell, for all I know you are a 66 year old woman with similar experiences, and a picture of your granddaughter as your avatar.
@DogMan I am older than you - 74 in another week. I’ve been to a lot of places, met a lot of people, read even more. Don’t get all high and mighty, sugar.
Age comes only through not dying, and the kindness of others. That’s a picture of me, roughly ten years ago.
A movement has begun for the abolition of prisons—not for prison reform, with fewer inmates in better institutions, but for the outright elimination of incarceration, on the implicit model of the earlier abolition of such things as public hangings, torture, and slavery. Championed most effectively by Angela Y. Davis’s “Are Prisons Obsolete?”
So prison is now the same as public hangings, torture, and slavery? I think that everyone that believes this, should be forced to take in released prisoners. especially rapists, and homicidal maniacs.
Um... I think lots of Democrats think Trump should be in prison. Certain rogue prosecutors and rogue judges, for example.
What was "rogue" about tRump's NY conviction??
tRump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business documents. This is a crime under New York Executive Law EXC § 63(12). This can be either a misdemeanor or felony depending on whether the falsification was part of a further crime. In this case, the further crime was falsification of income streams on tax documents, i.e. tax fraud.
How do we know? From the documents and testimony of Trump Org controller, Mr J.S. McConney. Take it away, Boo-Boo Jeff!!
“I made a boo-boo,” Jeffrey S. McConney admitted when describing the erroneous math he scribbled on “TRUMP” corporate letterhead.
The former Trump Organization controller testified about the notes he took during a January 2017 meeting that laid out how the family real estate company was going to surreptitiously reimburse attorney Michael Cohen for fronting the $130,000 that silenced the porn star Stormy Daniels. That payment kept her from going public about her decade-old, one-night stand with Trump in the days before the 2016 presidential election.
The farce was laid out in black and white, with handwritten notes explaining the fuzzy math at play.
Cohen would be paid $180,000, which was doubled on paper so that it would make up for the roughly 50 percent taxes the Midtown Manhattan resident would have to pay in federal, state, and city taxes. McConney wrote “180,000 x 2 for taxes” in black pen on the bright white paper. On the witness stand, he admitted the company was fine having it “grossed up” to ensure Cohen got his proper share.
The sham continued when tallying up Cohen’s bonus. Initially $50,000 was marked as “paid to Red Finch for tech services” but that seemed to morph instead to mean $60,000 for Cohen himself.
“Michael was complaining that his bonus wasn’t large enough. This was to make up for whatever he thought he was owed,” McConney testified.
The total $420,000 was then divided by 12 so that Cohen would get $35,000 each month for a year. McConney’s notes of that meeting included a mention that stated “Mike to invoice us,” the genesis of what prosecutors say would later be Cohen invoices for fake legal work that Trump gladly paid to keep the hush money deal under wraps.
Monday’s testimony also connected Trump directly to the process, a major step forward in the case. Prosecutors showed jurors a copy of a March 28, 2017 email in which McConney wrote, “I’ll check status tomorrow. DJT needs to sign check.”
On the stand, McConney explained that authorizing the money transfers would require having someone actually go to the White House have the then-president of the United States approve the payment himself—while he was president.
@sunsporter1649 That IS amazing. They are truly magicians. They still control 90% of the media, so it's easy for them to get 50% of the country to believe whatever they say.
I think the more accurate phrase would be "big if true." However, it's false.
(1) New York had a pandemic era extension of their usual 5-year Statute of Limitations.
(2) As explained in my post, according to New York Executive Law EXC § 63(12), falsification of business documents can be either a misdemeanor or felony depending on whether the falsification was part of a further crime. In this case, the further crime was falsification of income streams on tax documents, i.e. tax fraud.
(3) It's heartening to see that sunstroke admits tRump's 34 violations of NY EXC § 63(12), falsification of business documents and only contests the felony classification. Perhaps sunstroke can explain what he means by "hyperinflation." Oh, wait, he'll just post another silly cartoon🤣😂
A coalition of over 80 grassroots organizations in California is actively calling for the state to continue closing prisons and redirecting resources towards community services.
You can bet that they will fight the re-opening of Alcatraz.
(1) In addition the $300m required to refurbish and reopen Alcatraz as a functioning prison, it is estimated that it would cost three times as much to run as a modern facility.
(2) There is already plenty of spare capacity in the prison estate wuthout opening another facility.
(3) Alcatraz is a national.park and popular tourist attraction, turning over around $60m a year.
Great idea . . if your view of criminal justice is based on watching Hollywood films and you have limitless amounts of taxpayers' money to p**s up the wall 🙂
Were it up to me, I'd convert on old container ship to a prison. Use containers as cells. Anchor it somewhere in Bermuda triangle. And if it happens to get hit by a hurricane and sink, oh well... 🤷🏻
Kind of like how he was going to annex Canada and Greenland, he was going to turn Gaza into a vacation spot, OH and now he wants to be the next Pope.
He has all these peanut boy ideas that never last longer than two weeks.
Of course the MAGA crowd's t4ints start twitching with excitement each time trump comes up with more half baked ideas.
I wonder if one day he will promise to resurrect old leaders who have passed on. Of course MAGA will believe it like they do EVERYthing trump says. DUR DUR-DUR
Alcatraz has a maximum capacity of 336 prisoners. I wonder how much of a dent that would make in the number of high risk illegal immigrant criminals Trump is thinking of housing there?
@SunshineGirl I can agree w that .. seeming chaos in action is not a great strategy ..
Neither was a bumbling old man being "managed" by .. well, who TAF knows .. letting millions come into the country unvetted .. firing people refusing a vaccine that was not represented as capable of the basis for firing them .. pushing toward electric vehicle mandates without the infrastructure for them or even a plan to put it in place .. Driving us head long toward a debt cliff that will cripple us in debt servicing
Tough choices to be faced w making seldom lead to the greatest agreement among the masses