Alcatraz Island (The Prison) Alcatraz Island was opened from 1934 to 1963. At that time it was the last stop in the federal penitentiary pipeline. It housed famous criminals such as Al “Scar face” Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Robert Stroud, “The Birdman of Alcatraz” (American Automobile Association 81). The warden, James Johnston, turned it into such a brutal place that even the most hardened criminals started calling it “Hellcatraz”. That raises the question was Alcatraz’s brutality essential, or just plain cruel? Located on a twenty-two acre island in San Francisco Bay, about a half mile off shore (National Geographic), Alcatraz was built out of an old mili