SB 91 and Alaska prison populations

When it was passed by the Legislature in 2016, the goals of SB 91 were to reduce prison populations, help prisoners reenter society, get jobs and become productive citizens after release, and to save money. The state budget had been hit hard by declining oil revenues and prison costs were going through the roof.

Now, it appears prison costs will still be increasing and prison counts, after stabilizing for two years, will be head back up. That’s partly because of Senate Bill 54, a law the Legislature passed in 2017 to correct certain problems in SB 91, mainly reimposing jail time to low-level crimes.

Meanwhile, property crimes like auto theft and burglaries continue to weigh heavily on the public. Most of the crime is related to drugs, police say. It’s a problem that shows no sign of easing.

Meanwhile, the Legislature and Gov. Bill Walker have maintained the funding commitments for prisoner drug treatment and counseling, which are considered essential helping inmates reenter society.

Here’s a breakdown of the major funding categories related to SB 91:

In mid-2016, when SB 91 became effective, $25.5 million was set aside for programs related to reducing recidivism (one’s proclivity to recommit crimes). The majority of this went to programs overseen by the Alaska Department of Corrections (DOC).

The largest of this was to pretrial services, at $17 million. This was to expand the monitoring of people arrested for low-level offenses but released pending trials rather than being send to jails that were overcrowded. Another $8.5 million was allocated to programs focused on community reentry, substance abuse treatment within the DOC (and a smaller amount for halfway houses) as well as the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault overseen by the Department of Public Safety.

When Governor Walker submitted his proposed budget FY 2019 to the Legislature in December 2017, his budget maintained funding for the SB 91 related programs. The House and Senate supported the governor’s proposals.

Sharp disagreement on SB 91 and its effectiveness continues, and there are still calls to repeal the bill outright. However, based on the Legislature’s support for continued funding of programs there seems a consensus to push forward with its major objectives.

Meanwhile, the Alaska prison population count for 2017 did a slight decline, according to an offender count provided by the Department of Corrections. This takes in account the closure of the Palmer Correctional Center in July 2016 which housed around 500 prisoners.

There were 46,204 prisoners moved through state correctional institutions in calendar year 2017 compared with 48,057 in 2016, according to data provided by the corrections department, a reduction of 1,853.

There are caveats to the numbers:

“Essentially, any offender who entered through the prison doors was counted,” said Megan Edge, the department’s Public Information Officer. “This would include sentenced, unsentenced, non-criminal and transfers. Also, it includes any and all ‘duplicates’. In other words, if someone was booked into ACC [Anchorage Correctional Center] and then transferred to SCCC [Spring Creek Correctional Center], then the offender was counted twice.”

However, the slight drop in offenders in 2017 may be change in 2018.

“I would anticipate significant increases in the prison population as a result of (Senate Bill) 54,” said Susanne DiPietro, Executive Director for the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission (ACJC). SB 54 was implemented in 2017 altering parts of SB 91.

The amount of the expected increase is unknown, DiPietro said. “Unfortunately, (the) DOC did not give the Legislature a very good idea of the expected extra expenses,” created by SB 54, she said.

Megan Edge, at the DOC provided her assessment:

“While the DOC does anticipate an increase to the prison population there is insufficient data to determine the actual impacts, (however) with the requested budget increase any changes to the population can be absorbed.”

The efficiency of SB 91 relating to savings relies on the prison population reductions. She said there is not yet sufficient data to identify the full impacts of SB 54.

Data links:

Final budget: http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Text/30?Hsid=HB0286Z

2017-2018 DOC budget:

https://www.omb.alaska.gov/ombfiles/18_budget/DOC/Enacted/18compsummary_doc.pdf

2016-2017 DOC budget:

https://www.omb.alaska.gov/ombfiles/17_budget/DOC/Enacted/17compsummary_doc.pdf