Legislature(2015 - 2016)HOUSE FINANCE 519
01/25/2016 01:30 PM House FINANCE
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| Audio | Topic |
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| Start | |
| Presentation: Justice Reinvestment Report | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HOUSE FINANCE COMMITTEE
January 25, 2016
2:32 p.m.
2:32:56 PM
CALL TO ORDER
Co-Chair Neuman called the House Finance Committee meeting
to order at 2:27 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Mark Neuman, Co-Chair
Representative Steve Thompson, Co-Chair
Representative Dan Saddler, Vice-Chair
Representative Bryce Edgmon
Representative Les Gara
Representative Lynn Gattis
Representative David Guttenberg
Representative Scott Kawasaki
Representative Cathy Munoz
Representative Lance Pruitt
Representative Tammie Wilson
MEMBERS ABSENT
None
ALSO PRESENT
Greg Razo, Chair and Commissioner, Alaska Criminal Justice
Commission; Jeff Jessee, Chief Executive Officer, Alaska
Mental Health Trust Authority; Susanne Di Pietro, Executive
Director, Alaska Judicial Council.
SUMMARY
^PRESENTATION: JUSTICE REINVESTMENT REPORT
Co-Chair Neuman reviewed the agenda for the meeting.
2:35:15 PM
GREG RAZO, CHAIR and COMMISSIONER, ALASKA CRIMINAL JUSTICE
COMMISSION, discussed his professional background and
shared that he currently worked as a vice president at Cook
Inlet Region Incorporated (CIRI). He relayed that CIRI
supported his work on the commission as it reflected the
values of the corporation. He shared that in the past he
had practiced law in Kodiak for over 20 years. He had been
appointed to the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission by the
Alaska Native Justice Center; he was the Alaska Native
representative to the commission. He introduced department
commissioners in the audience.
Mr. Razo provided a PowerPoint presentation titled
"Alaska's Justice Reinvestment Report" (copy on file),
which addressed how to control prison growth in Alaska. He
relayed his intent to spend extra time on the cost of the
state's corrections system, the cost of continued prison
growth if the legislature did not take action, and the $424
million that the commission projected could be achieved
through smart justice reforms. He spoke to the need to
reinvest a portion of the money to increase safety in the
state. He shared that one month earlier the commission had
released the Justice Reinvestment Report (copy on file),
which contained 21 consensus recommendations. He detailed
that the recommendations were aimed at making Alaska
families and communities safer, holding criminal offenders
accountable for their behavior, curbing the skyrocketing
costs of the state's corrections system, and achieving a
better public safety return on the dollars spent.
Mr. Razo addressed slide 1 titled "The Problem Facing
Alaska":
· The Cost of Doing Nothing
· Trends in Alaska's Prison Population
· Recommendations for Alaska's Lawmakers
Mr. Razo turned to slides 2 and 3 and communicated that the
state's prison population had grown 27 percent in the past
decade, which was three times the growth rate of the
state's resident population. Annually, the state currently
spent over $300 million on corrections and hundreds of
millions more every time it built a new prison. He
continued that state spending on corrections had increased
60 percent over the past 20 years. He stressed that
Alaskans were not getting a good public safety return on
the spending; nearly two out of three inmates who leave
Alaska's prisons return to prison or jail within three
years. He emphasized that unless the state made changes its
prison population was projected to grow by another 1,400
beds in the next decade, costing the state at least $169
million above the current spending. A graph on slide 3
illustrated the point in 2017 when the projected prison
population would exceed the state's capacity to house its
prisoners; at that point the state would need to come up
with money to fund a new prison or to contract for out-of-
state prison beds.
2:38:05 PM
Mr. Razo addressed a pie chart showing the state's prison
population on slide 4. He spoke to the current makeup of
the state's prisons and what was causing the growth. He
relayed that on any given day about half of the state's
prisoners had been sentenced to a term in prison
(represented on the right side of the pie chart). The other
half of the population were people who had been arrested
and charged with a crime, but who had not yet been found
guilty. These individuals included the pretrial population
and probationers and parolees who had been put in prison
for technical violations of their supervision conditions
(e.g. missing an appointment, failing a drug test, or
failing to maintain a job). He read from slide 4:
· What is driving this growth?
· Defendants in prison pretrial are staying for longer
periods of time
· Three-quarters of the sentenced population is
convicted of non-violent offenses
Mr. Razo read from slide 5:
· Felony offenders are staying 31 percent longer than
in 2004
· 22 percent of prison inmates are there for technical
violations of parole or probation
Mr. Razo reiterated that technical violations of parole or
probation included missing appointments, drinking alcohol,
and failing to maintain a job. He furthered that many of
the individuals stayed detained for long periods of time
for non-criminal behavior, which contradicted research on
truly effective punishments.
2:39:54 PM
Co-Chair Neuman relayed that he had been a part of many
discussions on the ability for offenders (particularly
street drug offenders) to receive treatment after arrest as
opposed to after conviction. He asked Mr. Razo to provide
recommendations on changes the legislature could make to
enable treatment after arrest. He noted that Governor Bill
Walker had asked for an increase in alcohol taxes. He
believed if there were increases in taxes the revenue
should be directed towards treatment. He believed treatment
would considerably help the state budget overall, including
within the Alaska Court System, the Department of Public
Safety (DPS), the Department of Law (DOL), and the
Department of Corrections (DOC). He was interested to hear
how helping rehabilitate individuals with addictions would
impact the state's overall budget.
Mr. Razo offered to have Jeff Jessee (chief executive
officer of the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority)
address the continuum of care needed immediately upon
sentencing and before.
Representative Wilson discussed that the legislature had
passed a bill on electronic monitoring the previous
session, which would enable pretrial individuals to receive
credit for time served. She stated that the private sector
was taking advantage of the option, but DOC was not. She
furthered that once an individual was put in jail they
became a part of DOC. She asked for the number of pretrial
individuals (28 percent of the prison population) who were
currently in jail and what the potential savings would be.
She spoke to the supervision violation population and
wondered about modern technology options that could help
save money on things like monitoring. She noted that the
Justice Reinvestment Report addressed the impact of getting
"them out and into something" within the first 24 hours.
She did not see anything in the report about financial
savings associated with the issue. She remarked that she
had not been successful in getting DOC to budge on the use
of electronic monitoring for individuals under its care.
Mr. Razo replied that the commission had spent significant
time looking at all of the data and statistics (it had also
had the technical assistance of the Pew Charitable Trusts)
and had spent significant time discussing the availability
of new techniques to do community supervision rather than
keeping a person in prison at a high cost, which included
electronic monitoring. He believed the issue should be
looked at to determine whether the work was best done by
DOC or private companies.
Mr. Razo discussed that the previous session the
legislature had created the Alaska Criminal Justice
Commission. He addressed the commission duties on slide 6:
The Commission shall evaluate and make recommendations
to improve criminal laws and practices, keeping in
mind the goals of enhancing public safety, offender
rehabilitation, victim restitution and reducing costs.
Mr. Razo turned to slide 7 and discussed the commission
makeup. The commission was comprised of 13 members and
represented a broad spectrum of viewpoints. The commission
included two non-voting legislators (Senator John Coghill
and Representative Wes Keller); three judges representing
the district court; superior court, and supreme court; DOC
Commissioner Walt Monegan; three law enforcement
representatives; Attorney General Craig Richards; DPS
Commissioner Gary Folger; Lieutenant Kris Sell from the
Juneau Police Department; Public Defender Quinlan Steiner;
Gregory Razo from CIRI; Brenda Stanfill from the Interior
Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living; and the Alaska Mental
Health Trust Authority (AMHTA) CEO Jeff Jessee. He
furthered that the fact that the diverse commission had
come to consensus on a reform package meant that the
policies had been vetted. He elaborated that the policies
had been thoroughly vetted by discussing the items with
stakeholder groups. He detailed that the commission had
been broken into three subgroups to address pretrial,
sentencing, and post-conviction. He expounded that the
subgroups had been supported by experts from the Pew Trust.
Ultimately the entire commission had reviewed all of the
recommendations and consensus had been formed on each of
the 21 recommendations. He reflected on the diverse
viewpoints of commission members and stressed that each of
the items had been given a very hard look. He expounded
that it had taken significant consensus building to
establish the best recommendations for the state.
2:46:18 PM
Mr. Razo turned to slide 8. He shared that in the past
eight months the commission had held public meetings and
hearings and had traveled across the state to urban and
rural communities to hear from criminal justice
practitioners, treatment providers, and members of the
community. The commission toured Anvil Mountain
Correctional Center and had spoken with staff and inmates
at the facility. He furthered that the commission had held
two crime victim roundtables in Fairbanks and Bethel to
listen to the priorities of victims, survivors, and their
advocates. The commission had identified to advance the
priorities in its report. Legislative leaders had sent the
commission a letter the past fall directing it to develop a
comprehensive reform plan that would achieve a net savings
large enough to make justice reinvestment possible. Justice
reinvestment meant freeing up state funds ($424 million) by
focusing prison beds on serious and violent offenders and
reinvesting a portion of the savings into the things that
did the best job making Alaskans safer.
Mr. Razo continued to address slide 8. He communicated that
reinvestment priorities included strengthening supervision
in the community, providing programming and treatment that
addressed criminal thinking and addiction, expanding
services to protect and support crime victims, and
supporting people coming out of prison to get them back to
work or into addiction recovery so they could be productive
members of society. He added that it included having a
place to live in addition to a place to work. The
commission had delivered the recommendations as a package
and not as a menu to choose from. The recommended changes
and the reinvestment component worked in concert to achieve
the desired outcomes: to reduce spending and improve public
safety. The commission urged the legislature to keep the
reform package whole. He stressed that the items were very
integrated and a decision to pick at one could potentially
unravel another piece.
2:48:40 PM
Mr. Razo turned to a flow chart describing the commission
process (slide 9). The commission had spent hundreds of
hours examining data on Alaska's criminal justice system
and how it worked. The commission had been speaking with
practitioners in the criminal justice system, analyzing
data, reviewing the research on what works to reduce
recidivism, and comparing Alaska's practices with those in
other states. The commission had developed the 21 consensus
recommendations, which were data driven and evidence based.
Additionally, the recommendations provided a clear road map
to a better criminal justice system in Alaska for a lower
cost.
Mr. Razo addressed details in the reinvestment report on
slide 10. He highlighted that the report provided detailed
data findings and summaries of the best research in the
field. The commission had made specific recommendations for
statutory and budgetary changes the legislature should make
in the current session. He expressed intent to provide a
broad overview of the recommendations and offered to
address the report in further detail over the coming weeks.
He shared that Senator Coghill would also provide a
thorough walk through of the commission's findings and the
specific statutory changes it recommended.
Mr. Razo relayed that the commission's recommendations
followed the best research in the field and the best
practices around the country, to safely release and
supervise nonviolent pretrial defendants while awaiting
their trials. The commission had spent significant time
looking at the bail situation in Alaska. He believed they
had been completely surprised by the number of people
sitting in jail waiting for trial. He stated that in the
particular phase of incarceration there was not much
happening other than spending time. The recommendations
also included bringing sentencing laws in Alaska in line
with other states to impose swift and certain sanctions for
probation violations and to strengthen supervision in the
community.
Mr. Razo discussed that the current discussion represented
a compilation of things, but none of the information was
new. The practices had been in use in parts of the country
for years; the ideas behind reinvestment and where money
needed to be spent for prevention were not new, but needed
to be utilized. He stated that if passed into law, the
comprehensive package of pretrial sentencing and correction
reform was projected to reduce Alaska's average daily
prison population by 21 percent over the next decade (slide
15). Additionally, it was projected to save the state $424
million. The reform package did not recommend releasing a
large number of current prisoners; instead, it recommended
changes that would affect how many people were admitted
into the prison system in the first place and how long they
stayed. He pointed to a graph on slide 15 and relayed that
the package would have a significant impact on the prison
population in the first few years after implementation,
which would allow for immediate and ongoing savings.
2:52:14 PM
Mr. Razo emphasized that while the savings would help the
legislature meet its goals of reducing the budget gap, it
was vital that a portion of the savings were reinvested
(slide 16). He stressed that reinvestment was critical to
ensuring public safety. Historically Alaska had spent
hundreds of millions of dollars annually on corrections and
hundreds of millions more each time a new prison was
required. Meanwhile, treatment and services that work to
prevent violence, reduce recidivism, and support crime
victims, were under funded. Services such as alcohol and
drug treatment, cognitive behavioral programming, pretrial
supervision, reentry supports, and victim services, were
necessary to protect public safety and change offending
behavior.
Co-Chair Neuman addressed how to get to an improved system.
He wondered if there were a series of events that led to
the current situation. He asked if the legislature had been
trying to protect the public too much when it had
implemented laws putting people in jail. He believed the
legislature had thought it was doing the right thing when
it had passed laws putting individuals in jail.
2:53:53 PM
JEFF JESSEE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ALASKA MENTAL HEALTH
TRUST AUTHORITY, agreed that there were basic places where
the state had started to go wrong. He discussed pretrial as
an example. He elaborated that the legislature had wanted
to give judges more options for ensuring that defendants
would show up in court; therefore, judges had been provided
with a menu (e.g. cash bail, third-party custodians,
electronic monitoring, interlock vehicle devices, and
other). In an abundance of caution judges had started to do
combinations of cash bail and many other things. He
stressed that if the defendants could do all of those
things, most would not have been in jail in the first
place. Defendants could not get it together to meet all of
the conditions; therefore, they remained in jail with no
treatment and no bail. He emphasized that some of the
individuals were innocent and they were all innocent until
proven guilty. He believed it had been a big "ah ha" moment
for the commission to discover all of the pretrial
individuals stacking up in the state's prison system.
Mr. Jessee addressed drug offences as another example. He
discussed that the legislature had wanted to start teaching
drug offenders a lesson with incarceration. The number of
violent offenders in corrections had not substantively
increased, but the number of nonviolent offenders had. The
state was spending a large amount of money (particularly
for drug offences) locking people up. He furthered that the
current administration was working to recreate some of the
DOC programming, but prior administrations had eliminated
most of the programming. Subsequently, individuals had been
jailed for long periods of time due to addiction, but
nothing had been done to treat their addiction. The third
component was the absence of focus on obtaining housing,
jobs and keeping individuals sober upon release from
prison. He summarized that the legislature had given judges
too many tools to lock up individuals pretrial, it had
elected to be hard on drug offences, and the state was not
doing enough at the tail end to ensure that the individuals
did not return to jail.
Mr. Razo elaborated that with the technical assistance of
Pew Trust, the commission had reviewed a number of studies
reflecting that sending a person to prison for a longer
period of time did absolutely nothing to reduce their
criminal behavior. He stated that in 2005 the felony
presumptive sentencing laws had been amended based on the
results of a supreme court case. At the time, the
legislature had specified that the changes were not meant
to increase the length of time people would spend in jail,
but 10 years later it was evident that had occurred. By
giving the courts a large range to sentence, they had been
sentencing on the extreme edge of the range; therefore,
there were felony offenders in jail for longer periods of
time than just 10 years ago, which was also a significant
driver.
2:57:20 PM
Vice-Chair Saddler took over chairing the meeting.
Mr. Razo continued with his presentation. He relayed that
in its letter to the commission, the legislature had made
it clear that reinvestment would only be possible with
significant reductions in the prison population that netted
significant savings. The commission had shown the
legislature how to find the revenue by safely reducing the
prison population; however, in order to protect public
safety and to achieve savings it was critical to view the
commission's recommendations as a package rather than as a
menu to choose from. He detailed that the state could not
release more people pretrial without also providing
pretrial supervision. He furthered that the state could not
divert more low-level non-violent offenders from prison
without investing in programs that reduce recidivism. He
stressed that the state could not reintegrate members or
offenders into the community after they had been released
from prison without also providing some reentry support. He
stated that perhaps most importantly, the state could not
continue to have a criminal justice system focused entirely
on offenders. He emphasized the importance of doing a
better job of meeting the needs of crime victims,
preventing revictimization, and helping victims and
survivors get back on their feet.
Mr. Razo furthered that a substantial amount of the report
focused on community supervision of people being released
from jail. There was almost no one sentenced to prison who
spent the rest of their life in jail; most people were
adequately dealt with in the current system. However, the
second someone went to jail, there would be a point in time
when that person was released. He highlighted that
providing some type of treatment in jail increased the odds
that a person would not reoffend when released. He
expounded that if a person had adequate community
supervision once released from jail - by a probation or
parole officer with a one-to-one relationship with the
parolee - the odds were that the person would not reoffend.
He furthered that it made a difference when a probation
officer cared if a parolee had a job and place to live. The
model changed from people going out and terminating
probation to people who were helpful to the offender in
order to have a safer society.
3:00:11 PM
Representative Wilson understood where the incentive was
for the legislature, the state, and the community to have
individuals in jail for a shorter amount of time when
hopefully they would be able to find a job and place to
live. She wondered where the incentive was for DOC. She
observed that the prisons had the beds and "it was less
people doing other things if you don't have as many people
in jail." She asked how to incentivize the department. She
stated that most of the items in the commission's report
were "already there, to take care of a big chunk of this";
however, she had found that the department had no desire to
do so.
Mr. Razo replied that one of the things that resulted in
reducing the number of people in jail was creating a safer
situation for correctional officers administering the
inmates. He elaborated that it gave the correctional
officers additional time, made the place safer, and
alleviated concerns about safety and manpower. He believed
correctional officers would respond positively to having a
safer environment. He agreed that for a long time there was
not a culture in DOC that focused on reentry [into the
community] and rehabilitation. He furthered that for a long
period of time, people from outside DOC were not allowed
into the prisons to provide treatment including mental
health assessments. He believed it had to have some effect
on the numbers. He reasoned that if prisons were not
allowing people to come in to provide services as a matter
of public policy, changes to the overall culture needed to
come from the top. The commission believed the changes were
possible and the report provided recommendations to
implement that change. He believed that it was a strong
message to send to correctional officers that the changes
would increase their job safety with more focus on trying
to help inmates to become better citizens.
3:03:05 PM
Representative Wilson spoke to addressing the problem on
the frontend with monitoring and treatment programs before
people became part of the system. She discussed that
individuals received "good time" while in jail, but they
did not receive time if they elected to do electronic
monitoring after they had been sentenced. She asked about
required electronic monitoring after a person was released
from prison and wondered if the commission had recommended
looking at the reason a person had been in prison in the
first place. She provided an example of a person who had
been in jail for drugs and reasoned that hopefully they
would no longer be on drugs in jail. She wondered if
electronic monitoring could be utilized to prevent a person
released from prison from getting back into drugs. She
wondered if it would take legislation or regulation.
Mr. Razo answered that the commission had focused on risk
assessment. He detailed that risk assessment could be used
when a bail decision was made in order for the judge to
have a guideline to understand whether a person was
dangerous or not. The other portion of the risk assessment
happened when a person was in DOC custody and they were
assessed individually, which resulted in an individual plan
carried out in prison and under community supervision upon
release. He furthered that it was a plan that should
recognize that any treatment a person received in prison
should count for something upon their release. He believed
the system did not do a good job dealing with the
individual needs of each prisoner; one prisoner would do
well on electronic monitoring and some would benefit from
more or less supervision. There were a number of people in
jail for the first time who had learned their lesson and
would not repeat an offense - to make them lose their job
because of the mistake resulted in more criminal behavior.
He reasoned that it was not always the biggest hammer that
was successful for everyone; it was an individual
assessment.
3:06:26 PM
Representative Wilson asked if the current system conducted
risk assessments until a person was found guilty and put in
a longer-term prison. She stated that by requiring risk
assessments at the beginning it would not require more
money, it would just be provided at a more helpful time in
the process.
Mr. Razo agreed that providing the risk assessments in the
beginning would not require more money. He furthered that
the tools had been used successfully in other states and
the commission was recommending using the tools that had
been proven to work.
Representative Guttenberg observed that most of the current
conversation had focused on dealing with the prisoners
themselves. He referred to Mr. Razo's testimony about
providing judges more options in sentencing, which had
resulted in more complex sentencing instead of a tighter
focus. He pointed to Mr. Razo's statement that individuals
were not able to meet the sentencing requirements and that
they would not have been criminals in the first place if
they could meet the requirements. He believed that most
people thought judges did not do longer sentences. He
mentioned Mr. Razo's testimony that jails did not allow
outside counseling of inmates. He thought one of the
attitudes in the corrections community was that every time
a prisoner was shifted around they were exposing themselves
to more danger. He relayed that someone had complained to
him about treatment for sex offenders; that the federal
government had antiquated practices they were pushing over
more current and effective treatments. He surmised that it
was not merely the sentencing practices, but the community
surrounding prisoners, which needed some nudging one way or
another. He asked if there were any recommendations the
commission had on the issue.
3:09:43 PM
Mr. Razo clarified that he did not mean to imply that there
were no treatment programs currently underway in prisons.
He explained that there had been a point in the past when
there had been none; there were programs currently, but
there should be more. He believed that in terms of the
management of organizations like DOC there needed to be
incentives for success instead of only mandates for
officers. He thought it was possible to build a system that
included incentives for prisoners and people on probation
to complete treatment. He noted that like in the business
world, the incentives could be financial. It involved
changing a culture. He had spent the past year working with
DOC as it began the prisoner reentry initiative, which
focused on the items currently under discussion. He
believed that DOC had started to do the things the
commission had talked about, but it was in the beginning
stages at a modest level in terms of treatment. He opined
that there was room for more.
Representative Guttenberg noted that he had worked with
Judge [Raymond] Funk on therapeutic court in Fairbanks. He
remarked that people would rather be in jail than go
through the therapeutic court program because it was
harder. He relayed that prosecutors had not been friendly
towards the idea of expanding the program and he had taken
some time to realize that it had not been possible to
release someone into a program because there were no
therapeutic treatment programs available. He asked if the
commission had evaluated the capacity in the programs and
how far behind the state was in fulfilling the need.
Mr. Razo answered that the availability of the restorative
justice programs (e.g. therapeutic courts, tribal courts,
and other) and the way the criminal justice system could
utilize them was still on the commission agenda. He
remarked that getting the 21 recommendations out the door
had been a massive task. He furthered that the commission
had concluded a meeting that morning and had devoted a
portion of its 2016 work plan towards dealing with
restorative justice.
Representative Guttenberg believed the commission had done
a great job. He recognized that corrections officers,
courts, and all involved were working to do their best with
what they have.
3:13:23 PM
Representative Gara agreed with concerns voiced by members.
He referred to Representative Wilson's remarks about the
difficulty of moving forward and saving money due to
resistance from DOC. He believed there was also an issue at
DOL. He detailed that Co-Chair Neuman had made a point
about a plan to file a bill to try to get treatment to
people upon arrest rather than waiting for the person to go
through jail. Co-Chair Neuman had been told that it was
already the law and that a prosecutor could do that if they
wanted. He wondered if the commission had looked into
whether some of the state's prosecutors were pushing too
hard to win as much as possible and to obtain the longest
sentence possible. He wondered if it was necessary to bring
in DOL to change the culture of some of its employees to
make the department more receptive to changes.
Mr. Razo replied that the attorney general and DOL had been
some of the most active participants in the conversation.
He understood Representative Gara's comments and discussed
that a culture existed in each of the departments. In the
case of the commission's study, it had been clear from the
top down that the recommendations were important to the
state and that everyone had made compromises to reach
consensus. He had witnessed a firm commitment from every
participant on the commission to make real changes (i.e.
changes in culture, administrative practices, and to law
and regulation).
Mr. Jessee elaborated that for years he had been under the
misconception that the state's attorney general was in
charge of all of the criminal prosecutors in the state. He
corrected that the prosecutors were all very autonomous. He
furthered that all of the best intentions of the attorney
general and DOL did not necessarily turn the prosecutory
conduct in the individual communities. He likened the
situation to the same as expecting the Department of
Education and Early Development to turn all of the state's
school districts. He clarified that the department was not
in charge. He advised keeping the system and its command
and control structure in mind. He explained that it made it
harder to get change with a diffused system.
3:17:12 PM
Representative Gara spoke to the issue of low-level non-
violent offenders. He wondered if throwing a low-level non-
violent offender in jail made an individual learn how to be
a more effective criminal, which actually made society less
safe.
Mr. Razo replied in the affirmative. He relayed that the
evidence had become part of the basis for the commission's
recommendations.
Representative Edgmon asked about cost-shifting between the
various arms of the criminal justice system in state
government. He used Dillingham as an example and explained
that DOL was proposing to eliminate the district attorney
position from the community. He had spoken with all of the
various components of the criminal justice system in the
Bristol Bay region and it had become clear that the
$340,000 cost of the position would probably not represent
a cost savings and would be shifted to other criminal
agencies. He pointed to victims of the system locally who
ended up paying for the fact that Dillingham would not have
a local district attorney to provide risk assessment
measures to get to know who the perpetrators were. He
stated that the local district attorney knew the
individuals and families and could make the best
determination on the time an individual should or should
not spend in jail. He stated that if there was one good
thing about the exercise of cutting the budget that perhaps
some of the proverbial silos between agencies would be
broken down and the true costs to one agency represented no
savings to the system as a whole. He asked if the
commission had touched on the issue. He referred to an
incident the preceding year related to contract jails where
the cost had gone from DOC to DPS to the Court System, but
no one had been there to assess the overall picture.
3:20:19 PM
Mr. Jessee replied that it was a challenge across the
board. He elaborated that the legislature was facing the
challenge in all of its budgetary activities. He addressed
how the committee looked at the departments' budgets in
isolation. He agreed that it was necessary to look at how
the departments interrelated. He furthered that part of the
beauty of the commission process was that it brought
different agencies together to talk about the issue. He
stated that it was a challenge for all of the legislature's
budget reduction efforts - as long as an agency did not
have to worry about the impact of a reduction on other
agencies they could manage to a number. He stated that the
legislature needed to start looking at the big number. He
discussed reduction to mental health grants and questioned
what would happen to people without treatment, who were not
stable in the community and ended up in the criminal
justice system. He reasoned that under the scenario the
state ended up paying costs for the individuals anyway. He
observed that the sad irony was that it ended up being more
expensive when services were lost. He recognized that it
was very difficult to cut budgets and keep and integrated
vision of how the overall level of effort was working.
Representative Edgmon thought the commission, which expired
in June 2017, may be able to touch on the subject. He
believed the legislature's budget cutting process was
haphazard at best. He elaborated that it was very difficult
in a 90-day session to know what downstream costs were. He
continued that one sector of the population was much less
intermingled amongst various state agencies, which were
going ahead with different missions. He reiterated his
suggestion for the commission to touch on the subject.
Mr. Jessee replied that Co-Chair Neuman had started much of
the process with legislative intent two years earlier that
started state agencies to begin all working together on the
issue of recidivism. He stated that there was some vision
and leadership on the subject. He relayed that the vision
had been carried out in the way the commission had
conducted its work. He stated they were on the right track
and needed to keep going.
Representative Munoz expressed concern over the prison
system acting as a mental health institution especially in
the pretrial area when individuals with diagnosed mental
illness were held without a more effective plan. She
wondered if the topic was a subject of discussion.
Mr. Jessee replied that DOC did not like being the largest
mental health provider in the state any more than anyone
else. He shared that one of the committees the commission
had set up that morning would focus on behavioral health
throughout the entire continuum of care (i.e. pretrial,
during incarceration, and upon release). He relayed that
the commission was focused on the topic currently and going
forward.
Representative Munoz was concerned that a disproportionate
percentage of inmates were Alaska Natives. She wondered if
the proportion matched the pretrial population - violent
versus non-violent populations.
SUSANNE DI PIETRO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALASKA JUDICIAL
COUNCIL, answered that four other states had adopted
evidence-based ways to reduce the prison population and
reinvest in treatment in other types of recidivism
reduction services. The states had seen reductions in their
prison populations that disproportionately positively
impact minorities. She furthered that some states had seen
the whole prison population decrease with an even larger
decrease in the minority population. The council hoped that
similar results would occur in Alaska if the commission's
recommendations were adopted. She confirmed that the
council had found racial disparities in the rates in which
people were incarcerated pretrial.
Representative Munoz referred to discussion that the
pretrial population consisted of nonviolent offenders. She
wondered if a disproportionate number of Natives fell in
the pretrial group.
3:26:55 PM
Mr. Razo thanked the legislature for including a position
for Alaska Natives on the commission. He had done his best
to consider how the recommendations would affect people
across the state, particularly in rural Alaska, and
particularly Alaska Natives. He relayed that no matter
which portion of the corrections system a person was in
(i.e. pretrial, sentenced, or on community supervision),
Alaska Natives were disproportionately represented. The
commission had visited Anvil Mountain Correctional Center
in Nome and he believed the staff were dedicated but
completely under resourced. He recalled that the prison
library contained about six paperback books and three non-
functional computers. He furthered that the prison did not
have an education coordinator for some period of time
because they could not find anyone that wanted to work
there. He expounded that the prisoners had built a small
motors repair shop to teach a skill, but it had been
obvious it had not been used since its construction. He had
noted only two non-Native people in the entire prison
population. He had asked the prisoners in the Anvil
Mountain facility to raise their hand if they were in
prison for an alcohol-related offence; all but six people
had raised their hands. He relayed that the remaining six
inmates had raised their hands when he asked who was there
on a drug-related offence. He continued that the prisoners
had significant substance abuse problems and no treatment
was provided while they were in prison. He stressed that it
did not make sense.
3:29:47 PM
Mr. Razo wrapped up his presentation. He reiterated that
the recommendations in the commission's report were data-
driven. The recommendations were split up into three
sections including pretrial, sentenced offenders, and post-
conviction. He stated that the recommended reforms came at
a time when major changes were needed in the way the
correctional system did business. He stressed that it was a
perfect time to make the changes. He furthered that the
changes would make people rethink how they did their jobs -
from the attorney general, the DOC commissioner, and
others. He hoped the legislature would consider the
reforms, which resulted in substantial savings and
increased safety in Alaska. He concluded that at the end of
the day, the reforms would benefit Alaskans returning to
society and would keep them from becoming criminal
offenders. He believed the state could do better.
Vice-Chair Saddler asked how long the commission was in
operation and what its work product plans were.
Mr. Razo answered the commission had done a work plan
earlier that day with a focus on four different areas (all
of which had been discussed during the meeting). The
commission had a three-year lifespan and would end in June
2017. He observed that it was not a long period of time to
deal with some substantial problems. Its recommendations
included an option for the legislature to determine whether
the work would be concluded in the three-year period. He
thanked the committee for its time.
Vice-Chair Saddler thanked the presenters. He discussed the
agenda for the following day.
ADJOURNMENT
3:32:23 PM
The meeting was adjourned at 3:32 p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| ACJC - HFIN Presentation.pdf |
HFIN 1/25/2016 1:30:00 PM |
|
| legal opinion ERA sweep dept law HouseFinltr 1-25-16.pdf |
HFIN 1/25/2016 1:30:00 PM |
OMB - 10YR Plan HFIN 1-22-16 |
| OMB 10-YR Plan documents HFIN 1-22-16.pdf |
HFIN 1/25/2016 1:30:00 PM |
|
| ACJC Reinvestment Report final12-15.pdf |
HFIN 1/25/2016 1:30:00 PM |