Pew Charitable Trusts lauds Senate Bill 91 as opposition to crime reform grows

PALMER — In a December brief, the Pew Charitable Trusts released a glowing report of the effects of Alaska Senate Bill 91, a crime reform bill signed into law by Governor Bill Walker in July.

The bill is a product of the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission with input from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which has partnered with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, to implement an endeavor called the Justice Reinvestment Initiative.

It’s an initiative that’s had a major impact on reshaping state’s criminal justice codes all over the U.S., including here in Alaska.

Under the initiative, advisory bodies in various states form, for the purpose of creating the underpinnings of criminal code, reforms which are billed by the group as evidence-based measures that will improve criminal justice and save states money.

Bills brought forward in state legislatures under the initiative’s efforts have often been termed the Justice Reinvestment Act; such as the Justice Reinvestment Acts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Idaho, passed between 2012 and 2016.

Although the names of the bills are not always the same, the criminal justice reforms, which promise to be data-driven and pass on cost savings to the taxpayer, have been passed, proposed, or are in the developmental stages in roughly half of all states, according to the Justice Reinvestment Initiative itself.

The December brief on Alaska from the Pew Charitable Trusts, predicts a 13 percent decline in Alaska’s population of incarcerated individuals as a direct result of SB91.

The purpose and effect of the bill is in part, according to the brief, to reduce the number of Alaskans in prisons and jails for non-violent crimes, and redirect money saved on incarceration into programs for both victims and perpetrators.

But December was also a month that saw public opposition to the crime reform bill in Alaska grow, as communities rocked by a series of serious violent crimes critiqued the lighter sentencing guidelines it ushered in.

Adam Mokelke, a former principal of Burchell High School and the father of murder victim David Grunwald’s girlfriend, called for a repeal of SB91 just before the Christmas holiday weekend. House Representative Lora Reinbold has said she’ll introduce a bill in the next legislative session to address what she sees as problems with the criminal reform bill, and she called again for closing loopholes in the bill in late December.

“I’m working with a group of crime victims right now and they’re very troubled about SB91,” Reinbold said in a phone interview Tuesday. Reinbold will serve on the House judiciary committee in the next legislative session, a post she said she requested specifically so she could address her constituents’ concerns about the criminal code reform bill.

“It’s going to be against the odds that we get this changed,” Reinbold said, “But we’re going to do our very best.”

State Senator Peter Micciche, one of the bill’s sponsors in the senate, also made an announcement in a Kenai radio interview on Dec. 22, that he still supports the bill, and is ready to fight for it. He cited the negative impacts of imprisonment on offenders.

“This is the best opportunity to break the cycle,” Micciche told Radio Kenai. “If they continue to prove that they are bad people, then they need to go away for a long, long time. But it’s like our system never tried to separate the two.”

Later in the interview, he added he is in support of changes to the criminal code that would “strengthen” it in a way that addresses victims’ rights.

Local activists who advocate for treatment options for people with opiate addiction have widely welcomed provisions in the bill that would see people stopped for simple drug possession referred for help instead of jail.

But while the Pew Charitable Trusts pointed to a likely reduction in incarcerated individuals due to the bill, many Alaskans debated whether SB91 had caused an increase in crime.

In the Valley, many wondered whether SB91 had anything to do with the release earlier this year of two teens held on kidnapping charges, who have also been charged in David Grunwald’s murder in early December. (The criminal reform bill was signed into law in July; the two teens were charged with kidnapping an older male victim in June.)

Among the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission’s findings were stats showing the state’s population of incarcerated individuals had jumped by nearly one-third in 10 years; and that state spending on corrections had increased 60 percent in the last two decades.

The commission’s report, “Justice Reinvestment Report,” was published in Dec. 2015, and is available at the Alaska Judicial Council website, www.ajc.state.ak.us.

The new criminal code reform bill, signed by Gov. Walker in July, SB91, is available under Bills & Laws at the Alaska State Legislature’s website, www.akeleg.gov.

The next session of the Alaska State Legislature begins on Jan. 17