Having been incarcerated at the Cook County Jail since his sentencing on October 24, 1931, mobster Al Capone is transferred to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta after the U.S. Supreme Court denies his appeal for conviction of tax evasion.

The Cook County Jail, located on 96 acres in South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, is operated by the Sheriff of Cook County. It is sometimes referred to as California or Hotel California, as its address is on California Avenue. A city jail has existed on this site since after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, but major County prisoners were not generally collocated here until closure of the old Hubbard Street Criminal Court Building and jail in 1929. Since then, a 1920s neoclassical and art deco courthouse for the criminal division of the Cook County Circuit Court has operated at the South Lawndale complex.

A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster. Gangs provide a level of organization and resources that support much larger and more complex criminal transactions than an individual criminal could achieve. Gangsters have been active for many years in countries around the world. Gangsters are the subject of many novels, films, television series, and video games.

Alphonse Gabriel Capone, sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1925 to 1931. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he was imprisoned at the age of 33.

The Federal Correctional Institution, Atlanta is a low-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Atlanta, Georgia. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has a satellite prison camp for minimum-security male inmates, a detention center for male pretrial inmates, and also has an additional high and/or maximum security detention center unit[s].