Alcatraz 'last living inmate via Trump's plan to open the prison again

When Charlie Hopkins is withdrawn from the three years that he spent in one of the most famous America Prison, he remembers the “fatally calm”.

In 1955, Hopkins was sent to Alcatraz -an isolated island off the coast of San Francisco -after causing problems in other prisons, a 17 -year prison sentence for kidnapping and robbery.

F under falling asleep in his cell on the remote island at night, he said that the only sound was the pipe of ships.

“This is a lonely sound,” said Hopkins. “It reminds you of Hank Williams who sings this song: 'I am so lonely that I can cry.'”

Now 93 and in Florida, said Hopkins, said the National Archive in San Francisco informed him that he was probably the last surviving former Alcatraz inmate. The BBC could not check this independently.

In an interview with the BBC this week, Hopkins described the life in Alcatraz, where he made friends with gangsters and helped to plan an unsuccessful escape. Although it was closed decades ago, President Donald Trump recently said that he wanted to reopen it as a federal prison.

When Hopkins was brought to the high -security prison from a facility in Atlanta in 1955, he remembers that it is clean but barren. And there were only a few distractions – then no radio and only a few books, he said.

“There was nothing to do,” he said. “You could go back and forth in your cell or do pushups.”

With his job, Hopkins was busy cleaning Alcatraz, sweeping the soil and “until they shone,” he said.

He was sent to prison in Jacksonville, Florida in Jacksonville in 1952 because he plays a role in a number of robberies and kidnappings. He was part of a group who took hostages to get through roadblocks and steal cars, he said.

Hopkins had some notorious neighbors in Alcatraz. In their 30 years there was many violent criminals in the facility – Al Capone; Robert Stroud, a murderer known as “Birdman of Alcatraz”; And criminal boss James “Whitey” Bulger – Make it the subject of a variety of films and television programs.

A 22 hectare island, 2 kilometers of 1.25 miles in front of San Francisco and frozen waters surrounded with strong currents, Alcatraz was originally a marine defense forces. It was rebuilt as a military prison in the early 20th century. The Ministry of Justice took over it in the 1930s and transformed the facility into a federal prison to speak to the brazen organized crime at that time.

Even in the high -security prison, Hopkins said that he still managed to get into difficulties and spent many days in the “D block” of the facility – solitary confinement, in which occupants who have dazed poorly were kept and rarely released from their cells.

His longest stay there – six months – came after trying to help several other prisoners, including the infamous bank clearer Forrest Tucker, Escape Alcatraz, said Hopkins. He helped steal Hacksaw blades from the prison electrical business to cut the prison sticks in the cellar kitchen.

The plan did not work – prison attendants discovered the blades in the cells of other inmates, said Hopkins. “A few days after they have locked them up, they locked me,” he said.

But that didn't stop one of the occupants.

When Tucker was taken to a hospital for kidney operation in 1956, he stabbed a pencil in the ankle so that the prison attendants had to remove his leg iron, Tucker told the New Yorker. Then, when he was taken to an X -ray, he overpowered the hospital regulations and ran away, he said.

He was captured hours later in a hospital dress in a corn field.

When more prisoners tried to escape Alcatraz over the years, the officials provided security, said Hopkins.

“When I left there in 1958, the security was so tight that you couldn't breathe,” he said.

According to the National Park Service, there have been 14 separate attempts over the years in which 36 inmates were involved. One of the most famous affected Frank Morris and the brothers Clarence and John Anglin, who had escaped in June 1962 by putting paper mâché heads in their beds and broke out by ventilation channels. They were never found, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation came to the conclusion that they drowned in the cold waters around the island.

A year later, the prison was closed after the government found that it would be cheaper to build new prisons than to keep the remote island system into operation.

Now it is a publicly run museum that is visited every year by millions and achieves sales of around 60 million US dollars for parking partners.

The building is decreasing, with peeling color, rusted pipes and crumbling toilets in every cramped cell. The construction of the main prison system began in 1907, and more than a century of elements made the place almost uninhabitable.

This week, however, Trump said that he wants his government to reopen and expand the island prison for the “ruthless and most violent criminals” in the country.

Alcatraz “represents something very strong, very powerful” law and order, said Trump.

However, experts and historians said that Trump's proposal to restore the prison was far -fetched because it would cost billions to get up for repair and upward trend with other federal institutions.

Hopkins agrees. “It would be so expensive,” he said.

“At that time the sewage system went into the ocean,” he added. “You would have to find a different way to deal with it.”

Hopkins left Alcatraz five years before it finally closed his doors. He was moved to a prison in Springfield, Missouri, and granted psychiatric medicines that improved his behavior and helped him heal psychological problems, he said.

But the enthusiastic Trump supporter said he didn't think that the president's proposal is serious.

“He doesn't really want to open this place,” said Hopkins, adding that Trump tried to “convey a point for the public” to punish criminals and those who enter the USA illegally.

Hopkins was released in 1963 and first worked at a truck station before taking on other jobs. He returned to his home state of Florida, where he now has a daughter and a grandson.

After several decades that were considered about his crimes and life in Alcatraz, he wrote a 1,000-page memoir, with almost half of the book describing his restless behavior, he said.

“You would not believe that I caused them when I was there,” he said. “I can now see and look back that I had problems.”