Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [49]
The Dungeons
The stairwell entrance to the Alcatraz “Dungeon.”
A rare photograph taken in May of 1933, showing the original configuration of the basement dungeon cells. The fronts were removed in 1939 and the cells were later used only for storage.
The cellhouse was built on top of the military Citadel foundation. Only the first floor of the citadel remains, under the cellblock. The hallway seen here was actually the dry moat during the Civil War years. The Citadel framework is still intact, with the windows and rifle slits visible.
Officers are seen standing in the former dungeon cells, located in the basement of the old Citadel.
The patchwork effect that can be seen on the ceiling frame and sides indicates the removal of brickwork and bars from the former cells.
The infamous so-called “Dungeons of Alcatraz” were the subject of countless news stories in the early years of the prison. The dungeons or “lower solitary” as they were referred to in inmate case files, consisted of eight cells located below A and D Blocks. Officer Robert Baker recalled that whenever inmates were subject to confinement in these harsh cells, the officers would purposely escort the inmate down the A Block steps, and then after a couple of days of confinement, bring the inmate back on the D Block side and into a segregation. This deceptive practice made fellow inmates believe that disciplinary cases that were thrown into the dungeon would be left there for months. It proved to be a considerable deterrent.
The basement “dungeon” cells were primarily used in only the most serious disciplinary cases, until 1938, when the cell fronts were finally dismantled. They would also become the focal point in the famous 1940 trial of Henri Young for the murder of fellow inmate Rufus McCain (this incident is chronicled in a later chapter). Warden Johnston would openly testify that Young and several other inmates had been confined in “lower solitary” for serious violations of various prison regulations. One of Young’s attorneys disputed this, emphasizing his contention that inmates were thrown into the dungeons for “trivial offenses,” though this was never proven.
It was alleged that inmates were placed into the dark dungeon cells without bedding, and without any form of lighting. These claims were later strengthened by former inmate Harmon Waley in later interviews. Waley had spent seven of his 22 years on the Rock in isolation or segregation.
In Young’s case, Johnston testified that the prisoner had been confined in the basement cells on at least three occasions, and was forced to sleep on the cement floors without any type of bedding or pillow. The cells had no running water or toilet, and inmates were forced to blindly use a bucket which would be emptied only once or twice a day. Waley claimed that some inmates would protest throwing the contents into the walkways where the officers would frequent. He indicated that the prison physician demanded the inmates be removed from these deplorable conditions, and later refused to enter the basement due to the stench.
The basement cells were damp and poorly ventilated. Warden Johnston described during trial testimony the “restricted diet” that inmates would be served during their stay in solitary confinement:
If a prisoner is placed in solitary in the morning, after he has had his breakfast, he is furnished bread at the noonday meal, and salads and one-fourth of the evening meal from the regular main-line menu. If he is placed in solitary in the afternoon, that is after he has had his full noonday meal, then he get only bread for the evening meal.
In all cases the second day menu consists of a breakfast of cereal, milk and coffee; the noonday meal, bread and soup; the evening meal is one fourth of the allowance form the regular main line menu leaving out the soup but feeding the salad and greens and bread and the hot drink, whether it happens to be tea or coffee.
On the third day a man in solitary receives the full dinner