Because 90% of all prisoners in the United States are in state facilities, the work that states are doing to reduce their prison populations is crucial. Attempting to end mass incarceration necessitates realizing this is a situation requiring not one national solution, but fifty state solutions. Below are current state solutions that could be effectively modeled by other states for meaningful reform.
“The Alaska Department of Corrections plans to send hundreds of inmates out of state starting early next year. DOC Commissioner Nancy Dahlstrom announced the department will be issuing a request for proposal soon during a teleconference with media outlets late Tuesday afternoon. She cited a growing prison population resulting from the passage of House Bill 49, which repealed and replaced the controversial Senate Bill 91. “
KTVA Alaska 11
October 15, 2019
Read More“In a ceremony Monday in a Lake Hood airplane hangar, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy fulfilled a campaign promise by signing legislation that repeals and replaces much of the criminal justice reform effort known as Senate Bill 91. That legislation, approved by the Legislature in 2016 in an effort to reduce the number of criminals who return to prison after release, has been blamed for contributing to a surge in crime statewide. As a candidate for governor, Dunleavy pledged to introduce legislation to fully repeal it. It had already been modified by the Alaska Legislature several times.“
Anchorage Daily News
July 8, 2019
Read More“The state recognizes that most villages can’t afford their own police force and has a special class of law enforcement, called village public safety officers, to help. But it’s not working. In the 60 years since Alaska became a state, some Alaska Native leaders say, a string of governors and Legislatures have failed to protect indigenous communities by creating an unconstitutional, two-tiered criminal justice system that leaves villagers unprotected compared with their mostly white counterparts in the cities and suburbs. “
Anchorage Daily News
May 16, 2019
Read More“SB 91 has successfully fulfilled its intended purpose in improving the fairness, safety and effectiveness of bail and the state’s pretrial justice system as whole. As the Alaska Legislature considers the direction of criminal justice reform, state leaders would do well to maintain the pretrial justice components of SB 91. Wiping away policies that safely reduce jail populations while carefully evaluating who is released and who is not won’t keep Alaskans safe, it will leave us worse than where we started. “
Anchorage Daily News
January 24, 2019
Read More“The report says that prison populations have gone down 4.8 percent, and that more violent offenders are in prisons than non-violent offenders. Additionally, more than 80 percent of people eligible to earn time off for probation or parole have complied with the conditions of their supervision and probation officer caseloads have decreased since reform, which allows officers to focus on people who need closer supervision, according to the report.“
KTUU Alaska
November 5, 2018
Read More"When it comes to pretrial release, Americans are presumed innocent until proven guilty and the bottom line is that Alaska’s policy now ensures that release decisions are based on public safety, not ability to pay. It is a judge, not an algorithm, who makes the ultimate decision. The research is clear: paying money to a bail bondsman does not reduce risk of re-arrest."
Juneau Empire
August 6, 2018
Read More"Although SB 91 has had its share of critics, it is important to remember why lawmakers overwhelmingly decided that Alaska's system had lost its shine back in July 2016. First, the system was not accomplishing its mission, as 63 percent of those who left prison in Alaska in 2011 returned within three years. Also, the exploding costs associated with a prison population that had grown 27 percent from 2006 to 2016, left the state with a smaller budget for other priorities like education and health care. Without SB 91, the prison population would have surged another 27 percent. "
Alaska Daily News
July 16, 2018
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