Former Alcatraz guards and inmates hold one last reunion on The Rock

After escaping from several other prisons, Bill Baker found himself at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.

A convicted car thief, Baker was at the maximum high-security prison for the last three years of his sentence, and he told Inside Edition he actually "became a better criminal here. I learned how to do counterfeit payroll checks, and that's what I did when I got out." On Aug. 12, Baker was back at Alcatraz, more than 50 years after it closed its doors, for the final official reunion of the Alcatraz Alumni Association.

For nearly 30 years, former inmates, guards, and their families have been coming back to Alcatraz for annual reunions, giving them a chance to look back at life on The Rock. Baker said prisoners and guards "pretty much had the same experience," and they've always been able to get along at the reunions. "My job was not to punish them," former guard Jim Albright said. "Their punishment was being removed from the street. My job was safety and security."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Many of the guards lived on the island with their families in Building 64. Betty Stone was 3 when her family moved there in 1950, and her dad told her she would stand out on a balcony and watch the prisoners working below. This year's reunion was the last official one because there aren't very many former guards and inmates still living; Stone used to attend with her father, who died eight years ago. "It was important to my dad," she told Inside Edition. "This is sharing our heritage and the history." Catherine Garcia

YouTube

Watch On