Photo Journal/ Weekly Photo Challenge: Wrong

This week’s Photo Challenge as hosted by The Daily Post at WordPress is Wrong. Initially, I was looking for things that are wrong in the photographs that I, or my husband, have taken. After awhile, I thought that I might as well approach the challenge from a different angle or perspective altogether and feature what happens to people who have done wrong in society. Here are a few photos taken from Alcatraz Island located in the San Francisco Bay. Also referred to as “The Rock,” this federal prison used to ‘house’ notorious criminals such as Al Capone, Mickey Cohen, among others who have committed grievous ‘wrongs’ in society. The place has also inspired quite a few movies, novels, and even a TV series as of late. We visited Alcatraz in 2009 with family. Here are a few photos taken from the place.

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” 
― Nelson Mandela

The ferry which brought people from San Francisco to Alcatraz Island

The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever. Even if people employ actual violence, they are not to be violent in turn. That would be to fall to the same low level. After all, even in prison, a man can be quite free. His soul can be free. 
― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism

My daughter’s horror is captured here as she slowly walks from one prison cell to the next.

“Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.” 
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead

It was said that in 1969, the island was occupied by a group of American Indian activists who were doing a series of public protests which lasted until 1970.

Alcatraz was built to keep all the rotten eggs in one basket, and I was specially chosen to make sure that the stink from the basket does not escape. Since I’ve been warden, a few people have tried to escape. Most of them have been recaptured; those that haven’t have been killed or drowned in the bay. No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz. And no one ever will! – From the movie Escape from Alcatraz

View of the San Francisco skyline from Alcatraz Island

“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ” 
― William S. Burroughs

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