Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Imprisoning Sexuality: The Abuses Of The State In Homosexual Male Incarceration At Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary (1934-1957), Vic Overdorf

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Between 1934 and 1957, J. Edgar Hoover - the presiding director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation – signed documents approving the transfer of over twenty military men with a charge of “Sodomy” to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Through the first half of the twentieth century, Alcatraz was notorious for it’s incredibly violent and high profile criminals. Since the island was isolated and conditions were severe, Alcatraz was the designated site for the United States to imprison undesirable people: violent and influential men who they did not want to rejoin society. When considering the legal term “Sodomy”– which in 1934 …