The Rock and a hard place

摘要

Alcatraz, known as the Rock, was once among America's most fearsome prisons, cut off from the free world on a windswept island in San Francisco Bay. Today it is a national park, visited by 1.4m tourists a year, who amble around the famous cell-blocks and take selfies against the bars. Until October, if they venture to a derelict building on the island's north side, they will also encounter giant images of serving and former prisoners. They are not the faces of notorious criminals such as the "Birdman", "Machine Gun" Kelly or Al Ca-pone; rather they are current and released inmates of Californian institutions who aspire to something more than infamy.