Alcatraz Island by Milton Daniel Beacher

The penitentiary claimed that in its thirty years of operation only fifteen of the 1,576 inmates had died from natural causes, only seven or eight fell victim to other inmates, and riots claimed only another seven.

Security – also protecting the prisoners themselves – was paramount, and the ratio of guards to inmates was higher than in any other Federal Prison. A Classification Committee consisting of the Warden, the Chief Medical Officer, and Chaplain was in charge of planning and recording progress towards rehabilitation. The facility offered ready access to medical care. Food was plentiful, there were individual cells, balmy fresh sea breezes, and hot showers that ensured that prisoners did not acclimate to the frigid water of San Francisco Bay. They benefited from the better living conditions on Alcatraz. The inmate patient population was generally young and healthy despite their lives of crime. It had three wards with five hospital beds each, two isolation wards, an operating room, pharmacy, kitchen, and bathroom, as well as offices for the doctor, chief medical assistant, and dentist. If you break the prison rules, you go to Alcatraz.” Alcatraz Hospital provided medical and dental care to inmates, to prison personnel, and to civilian employees.

“If you break the rules, you go to prison. The prison opened in August 1934 with a first batch of incorrigible federal trouble-makers. These sights may have caused more punishment and illness than any of the insurmountable hurdles confronting the convicts. This meant that inmates could see the breathtaking view of the Golden Gate, often observed city dwellers happily going about their daily business on the shore, and sometimes heard noises. federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island, which covers twenty-two acres only a little more than one mile from the San Francisco shoreline and the Golden Gate. It was a hospital inside a maximum security U.S. While many hospitals and their locations become historic icons for the accomplishments of their staff, Alcatraz Hospital is famous for its very walls, its infamous patients, and treatment. Alcatraz Hospital revisited-patients behind bars February 22, 2017

Alcatraz Island by Milton Daniel Beacher