The McNeil Island Corrections Center (MICC) was a prison in the

northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, operated by the

Washington State Department of Corrections The Washington State Department of Corrections (WADOC) is a department of the government of the state of Washington (state), Washington. WADOC is responsible for administering adult corrections programs operated by the State of Washington. This in ...

. It was on

McNeil Island McNeil Island is an island in the northwest United States in south Puget Sound, located southwest of Tacoma, Washington. With a land area of , it lies just north of Anderson Island; Fox Island is to the north, across Carr Inlet, and to the ...

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

Pierce County, near

Steilacoom, Washington Steilacoom () is a town in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 6,727 at the 2020 census. Steilacoom incorporated in 1854 and became the first incorporated town in what is now the state of Washington. It has also become a ...

. Opened in 1875, it had previously served as a territorial correctional facility and then a Americans sentenced to terms of imprisonment by the United States courts that operated in China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries served their terms at McNeil Island. In the 1910s, inmates included

Robert Stroud Robert Franklin Stroud (January 28, 1890 – November 21, 1963), known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz", was a convicted murderer, American federal prisoner and author who has been cited as one of the most notorious criminals in the United S ...

, the "Birdman of Alcatraz", who fatally stabbed a prison guard in March 1916. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, eighty-five Japanese Americans who had resisted the draft to protest their wartime confinement, including civil rights activist

Gordon Hirabayashi was an American sociologist, best known for his principled resistance to the Japanese American internment during World War II, and the court case which bears his name, ''Hirabayashi v. United States''. Early life Hirabayashi was born in Seattl ...

, were sentenced to prison terms at McNeil; all were pardoned by President

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

in 1947. and novelist

James Fogle James Fogle (September 29, 1936 – August 23, 2012) was the American author of the autobiographical novel ''Drugstore Cowboy (novel), Drugstore Cowboy'', which became the basis for the Drugstore Cowboy, film of the same name. He was born in Elcho ...

was sent to McNeil at the age of 17 The state of Washington began to lease the facility from the federal government in 1981, and later that year the state department of corrections began moving prisoners into the facility, renamed "McNeil Island Corrections Center." The island was deeded to the state government in 1984. In November 2010, the department announced its plans to close the penitentiary by 2011, saving $14 million in the process.Sullivan, Jennifer; Clarridge, Christine
McNeil Island prison to close next year
. ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (s ...

'' (November 20, 2010). Retrieved November 20, 2010.

Notable inmates

Alvin Karpis Alvin Francis Karpis (born Albin Francis Karpavičius; August 10, 1907 – August 26, 1979), a Depression-era gangster nicknamed "Creepy" for his sinister smile and called "Ray" by his gang members, was a Canadian-born (naturalized American) crim ...

, Depression-era gangster * Tomoya Kawakita, war criminal and collaborator with

Imperial Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...

, resister against Japanese American internment during World War II *

Mickey Cohen Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen (September 4, 1913 – July 29, 1976) was an American gangster, boxer and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles during the mid-20th century. Early life Mickey Cohen was born on September 4, 1913, in New York City to Je ...

, 1930s

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

gang leader *

Robert Franklin Stroud Robert Franklin Stroud (January 28, 1890 – November 21, 1963), known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz", was a convicted murderer, American federal prisoner and author who has been cited as one of the most notorious criminals in the United S ...

, "The Birdman of Alcatraz" convicted murderer and ''cause célèbre'' *

Alton Wayne Roberts Alton Wayne Roberts (April 6, 1938 – September 11, 1999) was a Klansman convicted of depriving slain activists Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney of their civil rights in 1964. He shot two of the three civil rights workers bef ...

, convicted by ''

United States v. Price ''United States v. Cecil Price, et al.'', also known as the Mississippi Burning trial or Mississippi Burning case, was a criminal trial where the United States charged a group of 18 men with conspiring in a Ku Klux Klan plot to murder three you ...

'' of the

murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner The murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, also known as the Freedom Summer murders, the Mississippi civil rights workers' murders, or the Mississippi Burning murders, refers to events in which three activists were abducted and murdered in ...

Vincent Hallinan Vincent Hallinan (December 16, 1896 – October 2, 1992) was an American lawyer and candidate for President of the United States in the 1952 election on the Progressive Party ticket. Early life and education Hallinan was born into a large im ...

, 1952 Presidential candidate *

Charles Manson Charles Milles Manson (; November 12, 1934November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of nine murders at four loca ...

of the Manson Family *

John David Norman John David Norman (October 13, 1927 – May 22, 2011) was an American pedophile and sex offender convicted numerous times between 1960 and 1998 on charges of child molestation and child pornography. Throughout his life, Norman operated various d ...

, pedophile, sex offender and sex trafficker

References

External links

* * "".

. * Oppman, Patrick.
Last island prison in U.S. closes
.

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

. April 1, 2011. 2011 disestablishments in Washington (state) Buildings and structures in Pierce County, Washington Prisons in Washington (state) United States Penitentiaries 1875 establishments in Washington Territory {{US-prison-stub

Notable inmates

See also

References

Further reading

External links