Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary prisoners would frequently report acts of brutality and inhumane conditions which severely tested their sanity. Ed Wutke was the first prisoner to commit suicide in Alcatraz. Rufe Persful chopped off his fingers after grabbing an axe from the firetruck, begging another inmate to do the same to his other hand. One writer described Alcatraz as "the great garbage can of San Francisco Bay, into which every federal prison dumped its most rotten apples." In 1939, the new U.S. Attorney General Frank Murphy attacked the penitentiary, saying "The whole institution is conductive to psychology that builds up a sinister ambitious attitude
Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens is a juvenile fiction novel by Brandon Sanderson, published in December 2010 by Scholastic Press. It is the fourth book in the "Alcatraz Versus" series featuring the protagonist Alcatraz Smedry. Alcatraz and his companions head off to Mokia, one of the Free Kingdoms, to try and save it from a Librarian take over. Alcatraz succeeds, but at great cost. Mokia is largely destroyed. Its King and Queen, over half of the fighting men, and even Alcatraz's good friend and personal body guard Bastille are all left comatose with no known