DOC responds to ACLU

ANCHORAGE — The Department of Corrections responded to a request by the Alaska branch of the American Civil Liberties Union with reports that DOC facilities had exceeded the capacity of three specific facilities for over 200 days out of the period between Sept. 1, 2018 and Oct. 15, 2019.

The ACLU also asked for documents, memos, and emails relating to the Palmer Correctional Center between Dec. 5, 2018 and Oct. 15, 2019 and received no records in response. Additionally, the ACLU requested DOC documents relating to “option to reopen PCC not viable” during the same time period and received the same results. The ACLU press release takes issue with DOC Commissioner Nancy Dahlstrom’s assertation that Alaska’s prisons were at 97 percent capacity.

“Because Commissioner Dahlstrom’s cited figure was for the system as a whole, not by facility, it failed to paint this clear picture of the state of Alaska’s prison system,” reads the press release.

The records request did uncover that Alaskan prisons have long been overcrowded. Between a two-week period in October of this year, eight prisons were over their capacity with Anchorage Correctional Center, Wildwood Correctional Center and Yukon-Koyokuk Correctional Center being over capacity every single day during the two-week period. Roughly half of imprisoned Alaskans remain unsentenced, an increase of 20 percent for the one-year period between September of last year and this year.

“We have seen successful solutions to the overcrowding crisis elsewhere, including the increased use of electronic monitoring, early release, and alternatives to incarceration for those with mental health disabilities and substance abuse issues. Shipping inmates away, or building more prisons, doesn’t solve the problems, reduce victims, or save money. It just creates more beds for a dysfunctional system to fill,” Alaska policy director for ACLU Triada Stampas said. “This is not a problem unique to Alaska. Since 1970 the U.S. prison population has risen 700 percent, this is the result of policy decisions, not crime.”

The DOC provided inmate counts at facilities for a period over one year in their Nov. 5 response to the ACLU’s Oct. 24 public records request. A total of eight DOC facilities had been over capacity for an average of 140 days, and three had been over capacity for 200 days. Anvil Mountain Correctional Center in Nome was over capacity for 267 days out of the period between Sept. 1, 2018 and Oct. 15, 2019. Fairbanks Correctional Center was over their capacity for 253 days, and Wildwood Correctional Center on the Kenai Peninsula was over capacity for 226 days.

During the two-week period from Oct. 1 through Oct. 15 of this year, Anchorage, Anvil Mountain, Fairbanks, Ketchikan, Lemon Creek in Juneau, Wildwood and the Yukon-Koyokuk were all over capacity.

“Overcrowding in state prisons can be damaging to anyone’s health, safety, and rehabilitation, but especially so for those already preyed upon by systemic biases built into the criminal justice system,” said Stampas.