Alcatraz closed as a federal prison in 1963 after just 29 years of operation because it was too expensive to continue, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The per-capita cost of housing prisoners there was substantially higher than other correctional facilities. In addition, corrosion from the salt air of San Francisco Bay means the facility requires additional maintenance to sustain that prisons in other locations don’t.

I thought we were trying to save money