Legislature passes crime reform bill

WASILLA — Local opponents to a criminal justice reform bill said they remain concerned about its effects on the criminal justice system, even as the bill awaited Alaska Gov. Bill Walker’s potential signature.

Passed by the Alaska Legislature last week, Senate Bill 91 alters numerous aspects of the criminal justice system, ranging from increasing the dollar value of stolen property required to draw a felony theft charge to offering legal protections against prosecution for people who witness serious crimes, report them in good faith, and cooperate with law enforcement to reinforcing a 48-hour deadline for arrestees to appear in front of a magistrate or judge. The bill passed the Senate by a 14-5 vote Friday, after having passed the House by a 28-11 vote earlier in May. Walker has 15 days to sign the bill.

Opponents of SB 91, like Vicki Wallner, the founder of Facebook group Stop Valley Thieves, generally say the bill removes deterrents against crime.

“You pray for the best, but fear for the worst,” she said. “I absolutely do not agree with this bill at all.”

Among the provisions in the bill Wallner finds objectionable are those establishing maximum limits for people convicted of shoplifting with prior commitments to five days’ suspended sentence.

“That’s open season on our businesses for small petty criminals,” she said.

Other provisions limit jail time for relatively small-scale drug offenders. Some of the most common offenses in the Palmer third judicial district are fourth and fifth-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, characterized by possession of drugs for personal use, rather than distribution or sale. SB 91 eliminates the ability of first-time drug offenders to receive active jail time, and constrains the amounts of suspended time that can be issued to repeat drug offenders.

Wallner — who said she herself is a recovering alcohol addict — says she doesn’t support unreasonably harsh prison sentences for first-time offenders, but said the jail time serves as both a deterrent against first-time drug use and a means to get long-term drug users clean.

“I think everybody wants to see us increase our treatment,” she said. “They need treatment. In order for many of them to get treatment, they have to have some incentive to get treatment. Without jail, there’s no incentive for them to get treatment.”

In general, SB 91 will breed more distrust in the criminal justice system, Wallner said.

“People are going to have to start learning that the law is not going to help us that much anymore,” she said.

All three Mat-Su area senators voted against the measure. On the House side, Representatives Lynn Gattis (R-Wasilla), Shelley Hughes (R-Palmer) and Wes Keller (R-Willow) voted for the bill, while representatives Cathy Tilton (R-Wasilla) Jim Colver (R-Palmer) and Mark Neuman (R-Big Lake) voted against it.

The House voted to include $30 million over three years to boost treatment funding options under a Neuman-authored measure, but the senators had asked for that to be removed, Colver said. Colver supports jail time as an option for first-time drug offenders, based in part on the idea that first-time offenders were seldom first-time users.

“I guess it’s not black and white, but I’m leaning more towards we needed those tool available,” he said.

Gattis singled out a provision of the bill that creates a risk-assessment evaluation for prisoners as one positive, and said legislators would monitor the bill’s effects going forward. The bill is also part of a larger shift in how crime is handled in America, Gattis said.

“Quite frankly, our tough-on-crime stance that we put together in the 80s isn’t working,” she said.

Gattis’s perspective on the issue is unique: her son Robin received a 16-year federal sentence in 2013 for importing the drug methylone into the country from China after the drugs were determined to have caused a friend’s death. The bill is designed to impact only the state system, Gattis said, meaning it wouldn’t affect the terms of her son’s incarceration. The Alaska legislature has no jurisdiction over federal prosecutors.

“I don’t get anything out of it,” she said.

In general, the idea should be for the criminal justice system to help people rejoin society, Gattis said.

“We treat them (criminals) like animals, and when they come out, we expect them to act like people.”

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.