Latest news with #massincarceration
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Yahoo
From Prison To Paradise—How One Bold Investor Converted A Notorious Federal Prison To A Luxury Apartment Development
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. At first glance, the Liberty Crossing Apartment community in Fairfax County, Virginia, looks like any other luxury apartment development. However, if you look closely, you will find remnants of its past and realize this is no ordinary apartment complex. That's because Liberty Crossing was originally a notorious federal penitentiary known as the Lorton Reformatory. The Lorton Reformatory was built in 1910 on 2,324 acres and served as a federal prison until it was closed in 2001. Most of the inmates at Lorton hailed from nearby Washington, D.C., because it has no penitentiaries to house offenders. People convicted of crimes in the district were sent straight to the federal penitentiary. Don't Miss: Hasbro, MGM, and Skechers trust this AI marketing firm — Inspired by Uber and Airbnb – Deloitte's fastest-growing software company is transforming 7 billion smartphones into income-generating assets – For much of its early life, Lorton was infamous for being where the government held women's suffragists, who were subject to abuse by prison staff on what became known as the 'Night of Terror" in 1914. As the years passed and the era of mass incarceration began, Lorton became infamous for another reason. Even by federal standards, Lorton was a notoriously brutal prison where violence and depravity occurred every day until its closure in 2001. Fairfax County paid $4.2 million to buy the land from the federal government and convert it to civilian use. The county added a golf course, three schools, and an art center, but the question of what to do with the buildings that used to house prisoners remained. Wisconsin-based real estate developer Alexander Co. offered a solution in 2008. Trending: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — The Alexander Co. had a history of successful adaptive re-use modifications. It proposed to convert the rest of the campus at Lorton into 164 apartment units. Adaptive reuse conversions can be difficult, but ironically, Lorton had several features that made it a good candidate for a successful conversion to apartment buildings. "The Lorton Reformatory was a good set of buildings to be converted into residential because it was a reform-era prison. So, unlike most prisons that tend to be large footprint dark buildings without very many windows, these actually had an abundance of light and had quite a bit of character to them, so they laid out very nicely for apartments,"Alexander Co. Development Manager David Vos told CNBC. That's not to say it was inexpensive. According to CNBC, the Alexander Co. spent $64 million to complete the conversion. When it was over, Liberty Crossing consisted of 84 one-bedroom and 81 two-bedroom apartments, all of which included an in-unit washer-dryer. Rent at Liberty Crossing ranges from $1,372 to $2,700. That's not cheap, but 44 of the apartments at Liberty Crossing are set aside as low-cost, affordable housing units.A combination of tax credits, bond financing, and low-income housing tax credits funded the conversion. Liberty Crossing opened in 2017 and achieved full occupancy in a few short months. Vos and the Alexander Co. also took care to pay respect to Lorton's history. They intentionally left some of the old prison-era signs detailing Lorton's rules in place over the converted residential buildings. "There's a number of reminders as you walk around the campus that remind you of the fact that this used to be a reformatory or prison," Vos said. Even the name Liberty Crest was chosen with a purpose in mind. Vos told CNBC, "The reason we chose Liberty for the name was we really felt that we were liberating these buildings from its more recent dark past." Liberty Crossing is a perfect example of a positive partnership between real estate developers, the local community, and the government. They all came together to create a project that serves public needs and delivers profit for investors. The reality is that many more innovative projects like this are needed if America is going to solve its housing availability crisis. Read Next: , which provides access to a pool of short-term loans backed by residential real estate with just a $100 minimum. 'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. Image: Shutterstock Send To MSN: 0 This article From Prison To Paradise—How One Bold Investor Converted A Notorious Federal Prison To A Luxury Apartment Development originally appeared on Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A hard cell? Alcatraz tourists dismiss Trump's ‘insane' plan to revive it as a prison
In the choppy waters of the San Francisco Bay, on a windswept rock, lies a crumbling former federal prison that's now at the center of Donald Trump's latest real estate proposal: 'REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!' he announced on Truth Social over the weekend, to 'serve as a symbol of Law, Order and JUSTICE'. On Monday, the day after Trump's declaration, throngs of tourists visited the island, after having queued up for the ferry at Fisherman's Wharf. Reacting to Trump's plan, Jonathan Perez, 20, a psychology student from Miami, was curt: 'He's insane.' Related: Trump orders reopening of Alcatraz prison for 'most ruthless offenders' Standing inside the former prison cellhouse, Perez looked around, horrified at the thought that the notorious prison could come suddenly back to life. 'He's already shown his enthusiasm for mass incarceration as seen in El Salvador, and he had mentioned using Guantánamo Bay to imprison people,' said Perez. 'I think it's horrible. They abandoned the prison for a reason.' Alcatraz is steeped in contradiction – a living symbol of punishing state power, Indigenous resistance and a space where tourists are encouraged to reflect on history, memory and justice. The former prison is now a museum run by the National Park Service and is one of San Francisco's most popular tourist destinations, with 1.4 million visitors a year. California officials have called the idea of reopening the prison, which has been shuttered since the 1960s, an absurd and unfeasible political distraction. On the island, many visitors seemed to agree. 'As tourists, we're a bit shocked with that news, considering how old it is and how long since it's really been inhabited,' said Janelle Lawson, a tourist from Australia. 'There'll have to be a lot of money put into the infrastructure to be able to make it livable again.' 'Typical Donald Trump announcement,' chuckled her husband, Wally Lawson, a retired IT teacher. 'I think it's a bit of a stunt to get the media off the other decisions he's made. There's only so much a newspaper can print a day, so all the other stuff that's going on doesn't get as much coverage.' Stepping off the ferry and on to Alcatraz island, Matti Oshri, 66, had a more favorable assessment. 'Trump – he is the best,' said Oshri, who came up from LA to tour Alcatraz with her family, who were visiting from Israel. She didn't know why Trump wants to transform the popular tourist attraction into a prison, but said she believed he would follow through: 'I think he's gonna do it. He's crazy, but good crazy.' No one from the National Park Service, which operates Alcatraz, was authorized to speak to the press, but exasperation was palpable among staff. Two French couples from Toulouse who had been touring the US's national parks collectively shrugged, rolled their eyes and said they didn't think the proposal was serious. 'He's marching backwards. Tomorrow, he'll announce something else,' said Regina Jacquel, a retired police officer, as her friends burst into laughter. 'As a president, he is not credible.' 'This is just another load of bullshit,' added her husband, Eric Jacquel. The two couples mocked the other property deals – from turning Gaza into a French Riviera to annexing Greenland, Panama and Canada – that Trump has mused about publicly. Alcatraz was closed in 1963 because it was three times more costly to operate than any other federal prison, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, in large part due to its island location and lack of amenities that meant everything from food to fresh water had to be brought in. 'With the state of our economy right now, if it was too expensive to run then, it's definitely going to be too expensive to run now,' said Tolu Ogundele, a 22-year-old psychology student at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. She was excited to visit Alcatraz, but didn't think much of Trump's plan. 'Honestly, he doesn't have very many good ideas,' she added. After its closure, the island took on a second life as a site of Indigenous resistance. In 1969, a group of Native American activists occupied Alcatraz, declaring it sovereign Indigenous land in an act of protest against broken treaties and systemic neglect. The 19-month occupation galvanized the modern Indigenous rights movement, whose legacy endures today. 'I think it should remain what it is, a national monument,' said Jacqueline Kemokai, a retired nurse from Tampa, Florida, who was moved by that history. 'They've taken so much of the past away already and there needs to be something left behind to keep our memories going.' It's a history that's alive and well for Morning Star Gali, a member of the Ajumawi band of Pit River Tribe. For the past 16 years, Gali has been organizing the largest sunrise ceremony in the US on Alcatraz on behalf of the International Indian Treaty Council. The events, hosted in November on Indigenous People's Day and Thanksgiving, attract thousands of people, including members of more than 300 tribes from across the US. Turning Alcatraz back into a prison would end the sunrise ceremonies, said Gali, who has been attending them since she was a child and got her name, Morning Star, there. For her, Alcatraz is a sacred site of Indigenous resistance and resilience. 'Reopening Alcatraz as a prison would not just be an act of historical erasure – it would be a declaration that this country is doubling down on its most violent legacies,' she said by phone. 'That's where the first California Indian leaders were imprisoned, and that's a history that's still not widely shared.' Related: A Thanksgiving bonfire at dawn: celebrating Native American resistance on Alcatraz 'Everything is just shock and awe. It's all part of the performance. It's just clickbait,' agreed Louwegie McGill, a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. For McGill, Indigenous incarceration is not merely a thing of the past. He spent time inside the California state prison system and calls attention to the disproportionate rate at which Indigenous people are incarcerated. He now works as a re-entry coordinator for Indigenous Justice helping formerly incarcerated Indigenous people re-enter society. McGill, who goes out to Alcatraz six to eight times a year for the sunrise ceremonies and to give history tours to students, thinks it's unrealistic to rebuild the federal penitentiary there: 'That place is decrepit, it's broke down, it doesn't work well.' Gali has a different vision for its future: 'I'd love to see it returned to the Indigenous peoples.'
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The El Salvador mega-prison at the dark heart of Trump immigration crackdown
'Don't stop,' said the local in the backseat. 'Just slow down and you'll see it.' Soldiers watched the vehicle as it passed the turn-off and the checkpoint. Then a white building flashed through a gap in the trees, a few kilometres from the road. Without permission from the government, that is as close as anyone can get to the Terrorism Confinement Centre (Cecot), the prison at the core of relations between El Salvador and the US. President Nayib Bukele bills the prison as the biggest in the Americas, capable of holding 40,000 people, and specifically members of MS-13 and Barrio 18, the two gangs that brutalised Salvadorian society for decades. It is also where the Trump administration has paid to send 238 Venezuelan migrants, and a black hole from which no information escapes – except for what the Salvadorian government chooses to reveal. The Guardian requested to visit but received no response. 'It's like Guantánamo on steroids,' said Juan Pappier, Human Rights Watch's deputy director for the Americas. 'These people are outside the US, in a country with no separation of powers. They're in a space essentially ungoverned by law.' Three years ago, Bukele declared a state of exception that has continued ever since, suspending constitutional rights and unleashing the state to take on El Salvador's gangs, including through mass incarceration without due process. About 85,000 people – 1.4% of the population – have been arrested since. Most are being held in pre-trial detention. Human rights organisations believe many people without ties to gangs have been swept up, and have documented almost 400 deaths in custody. The mass arrests broke the gangs' territorial grip, brought homicides down and gave many Salvadorians a kind of freedom they hadn't known for years. The great majority approve of Bukele's government. But at the same time, Salvadorians know they now live at the whim of a president who has accumulated near absolute power. In Tecoluca, the rural district in the shadow of Cecot, most were afraid to speak with their names. Related: 'It's a war on the people': El Salvador's mass arrests send thousands into despair 'If you criticise them, they accuse you of being a criminal,' said one man. 'All you can say is amen, amen – otherwise they might take you from your home.' César Cañas, a local councillor and activist, said that the prison was built without public consultation. Locals only found out when construction trucks started arriving in 2022. The military had set up a checkpoint on the access road, so Cañas approached on foot from the other side to investigate, finding that farmers had been forced to sell their land or face expropriation. 'When Radio YSUCA published our findings, that forced the president to give his version,' said Cañas. 'And he tweeted that they were building a mega-prison to house 40,000 terrorists. That's more than the population of the whole district.' The 23-hectare (57-acre) prison was finished in less than a year, and the first prisoners arrived in February 2023. Even now, locals say they know almost nothing about what happens inside the prison. The secrecy around Cecot is not unique: the government has released little information from any of its prisons since the state of exception began. But what is unique is that no information has leaked out. This reflects the fact that only one prisoner is known to have left the Cecot alive: Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian man who was wrongly deported from the US and subsequently transferred to another prison, where he still has no contact with the outside world. This tight control on information coming out of Cecot allows authorities to shape its image through choreographed visits from select media, influencers and US Republican politicians, making it the public face of the state of exception. Those visits have shown large cells with three tiers of metal beds but no sheets or mattresses. There are up to 80 prisoners to a cell, where they share basic toilets and a basin of water to wash in. Prisoners are allowed to leave their cells for 30 minutes a day, to exercise in the central area. They never see sunlight, but the lights inside are never turned off – except for the pitch-black solitary confinement cells. No visitors are allowed. The government says 15,000 prisoners are currently held there. 'Cecot is not meant for rehabilitation,' said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, a human rights organisation. 'It is meant for permanent exile, permanent punishment. 'In that sense, it's intentionally cruel,' added Bullock. 'And that's what is being communicated: that finally we have a leader strong enough to deal with these people how they should be dealt with, which is as something less than human.' The propaganda doesn't reflect the reality of El Salvador's state of exception nor its prison system, where people who may have nothing to do with gangs are trapped in still more terrible conditions in prisons such as Izalco. Nonetheless the image is part of what makes Cecot useful to the Trump administration, said Bullock. When Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, gave a speech in the prison, she did it in front of MS-13 members – not the Venezuelans they had just deported. 'The Venezuelans don't have the names of gangs tattooed on their chest. And when they had their heads shaved and their backs bent double, they looked sad. It generated some sympathy,' said Bullock. 'When you stand in front of MS-13 members, you eliminate that doubt.' The Wall Street Journal reported that Bukele plans to double the size of Cecot. In addition to deported migrants, Trump said he would 'love' to start sending US citizens who commit violent crimes to prison in El Salvador. People in Tecoluca were alarmed by the prospect of the prison's expansion. In one community, El Milagro – the Miracle – locals complained about being caught in the penumbra of the mobile signal blockade, but also the trail of sewage, that emanates from Cecot. The river has turned brown since the prison began dumping waste upstream. A young man took a stick and began poking the sediment along the banks, releasing a sickening smell. 'Cecot is the international mega-prison,' he said. 'For me it's shameful that Tecoluca is associated with it.' Still, he was resigned. 'We aren't listened to. People don't have a voice any more.' 'I'd have preferred a mega-university,' he added quietly.
