Thanks Conrad.
You mentioned in this podcast that everyone from San Francisco knows Alcatraz can never be used as a prison again but it often gets re-opened in fiction. Can you explain here why it can't be re-opened?
I say this a lot, especially because it does happen in fiction more than you'd expect. I'm also generally sensitive about San Francisco in fiction, because recently it's been a huge whipping boy for disaster and monster movies. ANYHOW! Reasons why Alcatraz would never be reopened as a prison:
1.
The city needs the tourist dollars! 
This is true, but maybe not how you think. Whatever money the actual tours of the prison make, the piers that line the pay side of San Francisco are a key part of the city's tourist economy. Pier 39, where the ferrys that go to Alcatraz currently, is literally the biggest tourist spot in the city. Other parts of the water front are right next to the major league baseball stadium or massive fairgrounds. All of these places would be directly effected by having prisoners being taken to or released from a maximum security prison. If you decide to load and unload from further away, you might as well just take them to San Quentin, a much larger prison, which is further into the Bay. Like in most places NIMBY=ism (Not In My Back Yard) is pretty heavy in San Francisco, you can't even build a multi story building there because people are worried about the shadows it would cast. Also advances in physical training in the 21st century mean it's not even that inescapable anymore. There are literally marathon-like events where people make the swim from the island to the mainland. It can be done, and it'd be a risk, to have escaped cons just show up at the waterfront!
B. The actual island and facilities of Alcatraz have been out of commission for over 50 years, and while some parts have been kept up to a decent standard by the part service, a lot of the place has fallen heavily into disrepair and have been eroded away by the constant saltwater fog that comes off the SF Bay. Maintaining the place is generally super expensive, and is why the prison was shut down in the first place. Going in and restoring everything, from the ground up, then maintaining going forward, would be incredibly expensive in comparison even to building and maintaining a brand new prison.
III. I'm not sure if this is common knowledge in the UK, but the SF Bay Area has some of the most expensive real estate prices in the world, and as bad as it would be to live on Alcatraz (again, very foggy, also the island is home to thousands of sea birds that poop everywhere), if that real estate was for sale it would be HIDEOUSLY expensive. Some Tech-bro would immediately pay like a billion dollars to turn it into Galt's Island or something. Also, to get people to work at the prison you'd have to pay them enough to live in the Bay Area, and that is a big difference from other parts of the state, even the minimum wage is 26% higher there vs other places.
Look, I guess never say "never", but it seems extremely unlikely to me. It'd be like using the Tower of London or the Bastille as prisons again. But I've been wrong about things before, so who knows! Also, all this is why I didn't get into it on the show!
