BDCHS Advanced Reading discussion

I rate The Secret of Alcatraz by Susan Sloate an overall 3 out of 5 stars, since I enjoy history quite a lot than what most people think.
Alcatraz was first founded by the Spanish explorer Don Juan Manuel de Ayala in August 1775. After California was part of the United States, the U.S. thought that it would be a good idea to establish a military presence there, seeing how it would fail as a fort or base there, they decided it would be best to build a prison there. When it was first a military prison, it held soldiers from the civil war, but no more than 30 were put there. However, when the Spanish-American War began the number rose quickly to 450 prisoners. Later, in 1906, California had been struck by many earthquakes and there was a raging fire going on, seeing that they couldn’t hold civilian prisoners on the main land, so they transferred many civilian prisoners to Alcatraz for holding. In 1934, during the Great Depression where there was a wave of violent crime at that time, the U.S. Department of Justice decided to make it a maximum security prison. By the time that Alcatraz was ready for its new population, it had become a worst criminal’s nightmare. Inside the prison were tough conditions. The 300 prisoners lived under the leadership of Warden James A. Johnston, and under his command, prisoners could not have visitors for their first 90 days, after that, they could only have one visitor per month. They weren’t allowed to be in contact with the outside world and could only be provided with the barest of necessities- everything else was considered a privilege to earn. They also had a strict code of silence, making some desperate to hear a human voice, some going as far as going insane. Inside the prison, no one got special privileges, so no one could bribe for a comfortable lifestyle in the prison. Some famous prisoners that were sent to Alcatraz were Al Capone and “Machine Gun” Kelly. The book only tells of the highlights of during the prison’s “golden age”, like the Great Escape in June 11, 1962, where 3 prisoners escaped from the prison, but were never found in the main land. The overall theme learned is probably that there are some places that can bring someone to insanity, so you have to be careful on our life choices.

What I learned was don’t commit murder or anything serious during the Great Depression, because you’ll probably end up in Alcatraz, which I’ll rather die from a vending machine than going there. The book was ok, not the best, but it has nice illustrations. One thing that this book kept reminding me of is that one show FOX released around 2012 that was called Alcatraz, I liked that show, since it was like a murder mistery.