Escape From Alcatraz (2026)

By: Peter Neville, Assistant Sports Editor

As part of The Griffin staff’s trip to San Francisco, we ventured across the bay to a run-down prison that once housed some of the most infamous criminals in American history: Alcatraz Island, the first supermax prison.

As we arrived at the “Rock,” as it was called by those unfortunate enough to have lived on it, many of us were struck by how small it was. In its heyday as an active prison, it only held around 270 people at any one time. And you can only imagine what it would’ve been like to be a fresh inmate on Broadway, hearing the whipping winds of the bay sweep through the prison blocks on your first night inside the prison.

Once we finally made it into the main section of the prison, we were immediately shown the cells that housed Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin, the only people to ever escape the Rock. We got to see the tiny holes they dug using spoons and makeshift knives to slip out of their cells and into the utility corridor in between each of the three main cell blocks. I always thought when I was growing up that those three prisoners probably made it off the island unharmed and used their makeshift boat to traverse the freezing-cold waters of the San Francisco Bay. But after seeing it for myself and seeing how far of a swim it would be to make it back to mainland San Francisco, I struggle to see how they could have made it across the water that night.

Aside from Morris’s and the Anglin brothers’ cells, we also got to see the cells of some of the other most infamous prisoners to ever reside on the island. We walked past the cell of Al “Scarface” Capone, boss of the Chicago Outfit, an Italian mob from Chicago’s South Side. Capone, despite all the horrific crimes he personally committed and ordered, was only ever caught and convicted of tax fraud, a fun-fact I recited probably a dozen times while in the prison. As I saw his cell, number B-181, where he spent four and a half years, it was hard to imagine that someone who has become so larger than life – someone so steeped in the lore of American crime history – spent 16 to 23 hours a day inside that tiny nine-foot by five-foot cell.

What really stuck with me the most, however, was the story we were told about one of the less-famous inmates at Alcatraz Island, Tomoya Kawakita. One of the Alcatraz Island guides told us his story: how he was swept up into the Japanese military after they bombed Pearl Harbor, and when he returned to the U.S. after the war, he was charged with eight counts of treason and sentenced to death. While awaiting his death sentence and exhausting his appeals, he received a rare commutation from President Eisenhower, who reduced his death sentence to life in prison. He would later receive a full commutation of his sentence on the condition that he be deported to Japan, which he chose to do to escape the horrors of Alcatraz.

The tour guide left us to think about Kawakita’s story and others at Alcatraz, as well as similar stories around the country, and to consider whether we should be judged for our actions the way he was. I think this was a great way to end our visit to Alcatraz and to really reflect on the realities of many of the people who did time there – and what led them to make the choices that landed them in a cell on one of those three iconic cell blocks.

Via Kaitlin O'Meara