[Senate Hearing 114-191]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-191
STRENGTHENING ALASKA NATIVE FAMILIES:
EXAMINING RECIDIVISM, REENTRY AND
TRIBAL COURTS IN ALASKA
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
AUGUST 20, 2015
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Indian Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Chairman
JON TESTER, Montana, Vice Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska TOM UDALL, New Mexico
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii
STEVE DAINES, Montana HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
T. Michael Andrews, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Anthony Walters, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Field hearing held on August 20, 2015............................ 1
Statement of Senator Murkowski................................... 1
Witnesses
Coghill, Hon. John, State Senator, Alaska Senate................. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Jessee, Jeff, CEO, Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority.......... 30
Morris, Denise, President/CEO, Alaska Native Justice Center...... 33
Prepared statement of Chet Adkins............................ 36
Razo, Gregory, Vice President, Government Contracting, Cook Inlet
Region, Inc.................................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 21
Singh, Natasha, General Counsel and Tribal Court Judge, Tanana
Chiefs Conference.............................................. 12
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Appendix
Association of Village Council Presidents, prepared statement.... 48
Hudson, Audrey M.L., Mayor/City Manager, Metlakatla Indian
Community, prepared statement.................................. 50
U.S. Department of Justice, prepared statement................... 47
STRENGTHENING ALASKA NATIVE FAMILIES: EXAMINING RECIDIVISM, REENTRY AND
TRIBAL COURTS IN ALASKA
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THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2015
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Anchorage, AK.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m. in the
Alaska Native Heritage Center, Hon. Lisa Murkowski, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA
Senator Murkowski. Good morning, we will call to order this
meeting of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. I want to
welcome those of you who are joining us this morning. I hope
you've got good sound in the back, is it working back there?
Okay. All right.
I want to thank the Alaska Native Heritage Center for
allowing us to be here this morning in their beautiful,
beautiful facilities and I think it's somewhat notable that we
are surrounded by not only Yupik culture as I look around,
truly all of our Native cultures are reflected in these
beautiful spaces here this morning, and so many friends from
around the state, leaders in many, many ways.
We've got a very significant panel of individuals who are
prepared to provide testimony for us morning and before we
begin, I would like to recognize the members of the staff on
the Indian Affairs Committee that have joined by staff, Greg
Bringhurst, who is working all of my Alaska Native and rural
issues. Greg has been with me now for several months, but we
also have Rhonda Harjo who is the Deputy Chief Counsel on the
Indian Affairs Committee. I've worked with Rhonda for many
years now when I was the ranking member on the Indian Affairs
Committee. She does a great job for Indian country around the
nation here.
We have Emily Newman who is also counsel to the Committee.
Jacqueline Bisille who is a legislative assistant again joined
by Greg. They had an opportunity, I think, to go out to Bethel
thus far, and hopefully, to gain better understanding of some
of the challenges that we face here in Alaska, but even more
so, the many opportunities that we have in front of us.
We'll begin the hearing this morning in, perhaps, a little
less traditional manner than you would see in a hearing before
the United States Senate back in Washington D.C. I would like
to invite a Yupik elder, Marge Nakak, to open the hearing this
morning with an opening prayer and we're honored to have you
with us this morning.
OPENING PRAYER
Ms. Nakak. Good morning to each one of you. In Alaska, my
Inupiat Native ancestry originates from Big Diomede through my
mother's father and that gives me my Inupiat name, Olawanna and
from my grandmother, who is Yupik, I was named after her, her
name is Mongwanna, which means seamstress.
We are all blessed to be on this land occupied for many
years by the local Native cultural group of Dena'ina
Athabascans. Their belief has been that every natural resource
and all the animals and sea mammals and birds have a spirit,
promoting mutual respect between nature and humanity. In honor
and appreciation toward our Creator, for His benevolent
provisions. There are still songs and dances and feasts and
ceremonial potlatches, which are still enriching our lives as
we express our appreciation and acknowledgment for these
natural resources in our Alaskan regions.
The land is our Native foundation for a cultural history
and evidence still exists throughout the magnificent state in
ancient settlements that are being unearthed today.
In our prayer now, we are thankful and acknowledge these
gifts of the land, the animals, the sea mammals, the birds, the
fish, the lakes and rivers, the crisp air, the plants and
berries, the valleys, the tundra and all the terrain in which
humanity and wildlife, essential for our sustenance and for our
health is still one of our subsistence ways of life today. Each
of your presence is welcome, and with heartfelt gratitude, we
participate in inspiring honor and respect to each one's
identity. In former times past, our ancestors, through extreme
changes, established tried and true ways of life to guide us
with continued focus toward preserving the abundant benefits
that nature provides for us.
Our ancestors intense diligence prompts us to carry forth
these indigenous values while cooperatively enhancing our
cultures through sharing and strengthening our peoples proven
achievements throughout the centuries.
Our implementation of these life ways promotes motivation
toward harmony in our present, diverse communities. Strands of
connections tie us together to be successfully in our future
without endeavors and our blended societies of many origins.
In radiance as the Northern Lights, each one of us is a ray
of light and reflects the aurora borealis, which is always
brilliant in the northern Alaskan skies. May our Creator and
our benevolent God bless each one of you in all of your work
for all of our people within this magnificent state. God bless
you all. Thank you.
Senator Murkowski. Quyana, Marge, thank you for that
blessing, thank you for your words to begin this morning.
One of the things that I respect and admire most is when a
Native person, whether they be Inupiat from up north or Yupik
or Athabascan or Tlingit, they always start by introducing who
they are and they don't say my name is Lisa Murkowski, they
speak about their family, they speak about where their family
is from and I've always felt that that is the gracious and
beautiful way to identify oneself.
And so I am pleased this morning to identify myself as the
daughter of Frank and Nancy, one who was born in Ketchikan and
raised in communities around the state. While my name is Lisa
Murkowski, the name that I have been given as an adopted
daughter of the dey chiton is the name Anshawayak, which in
Tlingit means Lady of the Land and it is an honor and a
tribute, unlike anything that I have possibly ever been
recognized with and it's a responsibility that comes with a
name that I take very, very seriously.
So today, as we look at those issues, that I think bring
sadness to us as Alaskans, sadness certainly to our Alaska
Native people when they look at the grim statistics relating to
what we see within our justice system here in this state and
recognize that, in many ways, we are failing our people here in
this state, we are failing our Native people with a system that
is just not working right now. And as one who has that
responsibility as Lady of the Land, it is also one who has
great concern for the people of the land and ensuring that what
we do every day is right by them.
So we have an opportunity here as we take testimony for the
Senate Indian Affairs Committee to lay out the issues, the
problems, the statistics and hopefully the solutions or a path
to the solutions to better our opportunities, for not only our
Native people, but for all people within our state in ensuring
that there is a fairness, there is justice and that there is a
path of hope and opportunity because I think sometimes, our
justice system is not viewed as a path of hope. If anything, it
is viewed as just a revolving door of commitment to despair and
that is not what a justice system should be about.
There's a great deal of discussion back in Washington, D.C.
right now about our justice system and the effectiveness of
what we are seeing within our corrections system, with how we
deal with sentencing, with just ensuring that our systems are
right. And it is something that is generating a level of
concern, but interests from those who are on the far right of
the political spectrum and those who are on the far left of the
political system, to attempt to try to find some solutions
because I think the recognition is, is just building more
prisons is not the answer or us. It's not the answer for us in
Alaska, it's not the answer for us in the country, so how can
we move towards a level of meaningful reform? And that is some
of what I would like as to attempt to discuss today.
We know that here, in Alaska, we have some very significant
challenges related to crime, justice and to recidivism.
Recidivism is probably one of the more challenging issues that
we are facing within our justice system right now. Whether it's
a misdemeanor or a felony offender, our recidivism rates here,
in Alaska, are some of the highest in the nation, especially
for our Alaska Native males and this is especially true for
individuals with lengthy or more serious criminal histories.
And we have good written testimony that is included as part
of the record and we will hear from each of those we've invited
to speak today. But I want to just cite briefly some of the
statistics that are contained in Mr. Razo's testimony here and
this comes from the Alaska Prisoner Reentry Task Force's, the
five-year prisoner reentry strategic plan for 2011 through
2016. And it notes that, in the lower 48, back in 2009 for the
first time in 38 years, it says 26 states successfully reduced
their prison populations, but Alaska was not one of those.
Alaska was not one that is seeing the rates go down. In marked
contrast, Alaska has the 11th fastest prison population growth
in the entire country, the 11th fastest prison population
growth in the country.
From 1982 to 2007, Alaska had a 152 percent increase in its
prison population. In 2009, one in 36 Alaskans were under the
jurisdiction of the Alaska Department of Corrections. One in 36
Alaskans under the jurisdiction of the Alaska Department of
Corrections and this is up from one in 90 Alaskans back in
1982, so we are on a trajectory that is exactly going the wrong
way.
And then of course, the disproportionate number of Alaska
people that we see incarcerated, these are the statistics that
we keep reading about that are deeply troubling. Alaska Native
people make up 15 percent of our state's population, 15 to 17
percent, but they constitute about 36 percent of all prisoners
in custody. Again, statistics that we should find alarming and
that sense of alarm should motivate us to work aggressively to
address it. And I think the good news for us is that those that
we have asked to be here today are doing exactly that, working
aggressively to identify the problems, to identify then the
solutions that come and what more can we be doing.
We all have heard the concerns about those who have become
part of this system, are imprisoned for whatever reason it may
be and then they're released and they go back into their
communities and we see a repeat. It might not be the same
crime, but we see a repeat situation where they fall back into
the same habits that may have initially led them to their
involvement within the criminal system and it is this revolving
door that we know all too well about. We have to do all that we
can to ensure that whether it's a young man or young women,
more and more young women and it's my understanding that what
we're seeing in that population is more young African-American
women are being involved in the bad end of the criminal system
here in numbers that are generating a level of concern and
interest and a focus that we have not seen yet. So what is
happening, what is going on?
So I would like to be today's panel again by thanking you
for what you have been doing around this state. We had hoped,
greatly hoped that we would have a representative from the
Department of Justice here with us this morning, someone who
could be a witness to testify. They clearly have an incredibly
important role in addressing these issues and I think a greater
level of engagement from the department would be greatly
appreciated and I know that, Natasha, in your testimony, you're
going to be highlighting a little bit of that. It is important
that, as we work towards solutions, it is not just the State of
Alaska and the legislature, it's not just the Alaska Native
Justice Commission that is doing it, it is not just the feds,
it is everyone working together and so we need to ensure that
just that is happening.
What we will do this morning is we will hear from each of
the witnesses. I urge you to try to keep within about five
minutes or so, but we're not going to be cutting you off, this
is important testimony to be delivered for the record. Know
that you're entire statement will be made part of the full
Committee record. For those who are joining us in the audience,
Senate hearings are a little bit different than what you might
encounter in Juneau, there's not going to be an open mic, an
opportunity for you to ask your questions, but I will advise
that there will be an opportunity for testimony to be submitted
for the record, we'll keep the record open for a couple weeks
after this hearing is traditionally what we do.
But after each of you at the table have given your
comments, then I will proceed with a series of questions, and
hopefully, it will be good dialogue back and forth, not me
asking you each one and then we move on. I'd like to have a
good constructive discussion going back and forth.
So with that, we will start off, I'll introduce each of the
witnesses and then we will proceed. We'll begin first with my
friend and former colleague from the Alaska Legislature, State
Senator John Coghill from Fairbanks in serving in the
legislature now--I came in in 1998 and you came in the same
year, didn't you?
Mr. Coghill. Yes.
Senator Murkowski. Okay, so it's been a few years. He has
been an able leader representing the interior in both the House
and now in the State Senate. Senator Coghill has been a leader
in moving the conversation on these very important issues. I
understand you actually had a hearing just a couple days ago on
the issue of tribal courts, recidivism and how we deal with the
reentry issues, so be looking forward to hearing some of not
only what the legislature is considering, but what you may have
learned from other states and how we can move forward with
that.
After Senator Coghill, we'll hear from Natasha Singh.
Natasha has been also a leader when it comes to moving our
state forward and our tribal courts forward in an aggressive
and strong manner. She is the General Council and Tribal Court
Justice for Tanana Chiefs Conference, is often an invited
witness back to Washington, D.C. because of your very able and
strong voice on these issues, so thank you for being with us
this morning.
Next to Natasha is Mr. Greg Razo. Greg and I also go back a
few years. We were in law school together in Oregon at the same
time and Greg has gone on to do many, many great things. His
present role is as Vice President of Government Contracting for
CIRI here in Anchorage, but you had been out on Kodiak for many
years and truly a leader representing your people here back
home. And again, your leadership within the Alaska Native
Justice Commission and the very specific focus that you have
given to these critical issues is greatly appreciated.
And next to Greg, we have Mr. Jeff Jessee, also a long time
leader, not only in issues relating to what we're dealing with
today with prisoner population and how to address some of our
issues as they relate to recidivism and incarceration, but Jeff
has been a leader for decades now as head of Mental Health
Trust. He and I worked together years ago to increase the
alcohol tax here in the State of Alaska because we saw that
alcohol abuse and use, in so many ways, just killing Alaskans
and how we could best deal with that, making sure that there's
appropriate funding going towards treatment and prevention. We
both know that there is still more that can be done there, we
both know that there continue to be horrible issues as they
relate to substance abuse around our country and we see that
translate here in Alaska in ways that deliver many of the
issues and the problems that we are speaking to today, so thank
you for your leadership, Jeff.
And rounding out the panel is Denise Morris and Denise has
been an active and a visible leader regarding justice issues
for so many years, is the head, the President and the CEO of
the Alaska Native Justice Center. And when I think of those
individuals that are leading in areas where we are making
differences, Denise is always part of that conversation, so I
welcome you to the panel this afternoon.
So with that, Senator Coghill, we will begin with you and
look forward to the comments from each of you this morning.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN COGHILL, STATE SENATOR, ALASKA SENATE
Mr. Coghill. Thank you, Senator. Senator, I also will
probably have to say I live in the shadow of another man that
bears the same name as me as John Coghill, he goes by the name
of Jack and that was actually what got me into the political
arena, so it's great to walk in the shadow of Jack Coghill.
Senator Murkowski. Great Alaskan.
Mr. Coghill. I've enjoyed it. A couple years ago, I was the
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. At that point, many of the
things that we had done in the legislature were meant to be
tough on crime, but what became more and more clear, during my
time as the Chairman, that a lot of what was happening was we
were creating more felons and not changing anybody's behavior.
And so the tough on crime element was something that I
began thinking long and hard about, what can we do, and it
comes from probably a little bit of my background prior to
being in the legislature as a pastoral worker and I began to
see people in jail and some of the things that needed to happen
for them to get their feet back under them, some of the things
that just didn't happen and some of the things that we could do
better.
So having that previous view and now looking at it from
both an economic and law perspective, I began to think how do
we hold people accountable, but actually turn those who can
change their behavior and make a healthier society because
that's really the aim. In the process of doing that, I
collaborated with some people to pass what became known as
Senate Bill 64. It was Johnny Ellis, who's a Democrat, I'd say
probably a different philosophy than me, I'm a very
conservative guy, and Hollis French, who was on the committee
with me at the time and then a good friend of mine, an old
salty named Dyson. I just turned mine off.
So Senator Dyson, Senator French, Senator Ellis and I sat
down and asked could we take the commission that had been
previously in Alaska in the early 90s and put it together
looking at the sentencing structure in Alaska, and from that
conversation, we began looking at what would we put a
commission together. In fact, the Chairman, one of our retired
justices is sitting right behind me, and they're doing a
wonderful job. That actually came into law and we're looking at
the sentencing structures and the various different things that
have to happen in Alaska.
From that conversation, we began to realize that we needed
some technical support and the Pew Foundation had been doing
wonderful work throughout the states because the first thing
you do is you look at what other states have done and they have
turned the corner on the prison population as you well stated.
Our prison population is way higher than we would like and it's
not changing anybody's behavior, so we've got to do something
better.
So the Pew Foundation, together with the legislature, the
Governor and the court system all agreed that we would ask them
for technical support and they've been helping with this
commission by just getting stats from other states, best
practices, things that are working.
In that Senate Bill 64, we not only put the commission
together, but we actually started looking at those immediate
things that we could do for like the 24/7 program, and that is,
for those who have been caught with DUI, could they do a
breathalyser twice a day and still be at work, still be
productive rather than sitting in a jail cell somewhere. And
that started going forward and that's a work in progress as we
speak. Some better work of ankle monitoring and some of the
structure that we put together there.
So in the written testimony I gave you, I gave you the
whole list of the Senate Bill 64 requirements. That generated
another bill that, while this commission is in progress, we
started looking at best practices from other states and we
started assembling them in what is now called Senate Bill 91,
which is in the legislative process as we speak.
So while the Pew Foundation is helping us and the Justice
Commission is working together with the Native Justice Center,
and generally having a broader conversation on what can we do
better, you'll see recommendations coming out that will
probably find their way into that Senate Bill 91. This is a
work in progress, it's just like you said, Senator, we're at a
place we don't want to be and we've got to move forward and
move out of there.
During this conversation, one of the things that became
clear to me is that, in the dynamic changing world that we live
in, the State and the Tribal Courts have really not worked
out--the best working relationship. There's some MOUs that are
working fairly well on the civil issues and most of those came
from work that was happening in the Child in Need of Aid area
and the Indian Child Welfare Act, things that I've been
involved with probably from the day I got in the legislature
because of trying to protect families. In fact, early on in my
legislative career, I tried to get the Indian Child Welfare
standards and the state Child in Need of Aid standards closer
together because they were quite disrupt [sic] and families
were languishing because of our laws not helping grandparents,
parents and communities be involved.
And so even though we can't align them perfectly, they're
better aligned than probably they have been before, but we
still went into court cases many, many times over how do we
handle these things, and in the process of time, the Native
groups and the tribal groups have begun what I'd call a pretty
decent justice system that I would say is maturing and the
State has had some struggles, there's no doubt about it, how to
work with them legally, technically.
And what I found out about this MOU working with them in
civil areas, and so I drafted Senate Bill 117, which would
create a way to have what we call a diversion program on some
of the smaller criminal issues that would allow the courts to
work with them in a little broader range. And the reason I
think that's important, Senator, is they can use restorative
justice ways that the state just has a hard time getting to and
I think that's going to, at the front end, keep people from
coming into prison while Senate Bill 91 will work with ways to
reenter them into society in a better way. But it's true that
disproportionate share of people in our incarcerated facilities
are not only Native, but they have behavioral health issues and
those things just have to be addressed and I think the tribal
courts is one way and other accountability methods is a better
way than say sitting in a jail cell.
One of the things the State has done well, and I'm hoping
this Committee will take seriously, is we've had a good working
relationship with the Village Police Safety Officers, VPSOs
they call them. The State has put--I got a little sheet for
your perusal. Over the last 20 years, we put about $200 million
into it where we've had good working relationship between the
State and the Native Corporations for these Village Public
Safety Officers. They're not just police, they're search and
rescue, they're counselors, they're people who will be there
when an EMS is needed and these people do work with the State
and for that community that is unparalleled.
It's a work in progress, we've had good days and bad days
with the VPSOs, but I can tell you having somebody in the
community has slowed down domestic violence, sexual assault,
it's demonstrable and we just haven't done enough probably,
there's more that can be done. But that is one relationship
that has worked good with our public safety officers and our
Department of Corrections because they do a lot of the
probation officer work right there in the community, right
there where they know the people and see the people in the
community.
So as you said, we had two conferences here just recently.
The National Conference of Sentencing Commissions was just here
in Girdwood meeting just this weekend, so I got to do one of
the opening addresses and got to listen to the benefits,
successes and some of the trials that other States had
implementing what they call a justice reinvestment and that is,
what can we do to turn the corner on prison population and
reinvest that into programs that give people opportunities for
success and whether it's a driving license or whatever it may
be. So we learn from them and then we brought the Pew people to
a join judiciary committee meeting the very next day and had
the Pew people show us what they've seen statistically from
other states and how that's turned the prison population down
and how actually crime rates go down and people actually become
healthier and more productive in society. Many, many good
things, some of them are incorporated in Senate Bill 91, some
will come from the recommendations of the commission that we
put together, the Justice Commission.
So I'd say even though I got to be the lead dog on some of
these issues, it was a broad base support, it was bipartisan,
we're looking at building another jail or sending people out of
State and for why? For a healthier society. So everything from
driver's licenses to keeping less victims being victimized is
the things that we're talking about, it's a broad range of
issues.
I appreciate you bringing this to light in your Committee
and I gave as clear as what we're doing in those three Bills.
It's not the only thing that's happening, some of the budgetary
work that we're doing in our budget, even though it's austere
as can be, our behavioral health world actually took a little
extra this year because we know that is going to be part of the
solution to turning the corner for many people.
So I appreciate the time to testify and I'll be here,
available for questions on what the legislature's doing and how
we see the State interacting.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Coghill follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. John Coghill, State Senator, Alaska Senate
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Murkowski. Great, thank you, Senator Coghill,
really appreciate your leadership on this. Natasha Singh,
welcome.
STATEMENT OF NATASHA SINGH, GENERAL COUNSEL AND TRIBAL COURT
JUDGE, TANANA CHIEFS CONFERENCE
Ms. Singh. Thank you.
Thank you for holding today's hearing focused on
strengthening Alaska Native families. In the past, unfounded
fears surrounding tribal authority have prohibited discussion
on how tribal courts can work with the State to reduce
recidivism and make reentry more successful.
Today, because of leaders like yourself, Senator Murkowski,
Senator Coghill, Governor Walker, the discussion is able to
move forward as tribes offer innovative ways in which tribal
programs can work with State and Federal programs in order to
improve the safety of our State and provide for strong Alaska
Native families.
It is a privilege, an honor to testify on a topic, which
has the potential to bring fundamental and desperately needed
change across Alaska.
My name is Natasha Singh, my parents are Karm and Renee
Singh, my grandmother is Valerie Matthew and my grandfather is
the late Steven Matthew. I'm from Stevens Village, I'm a
Stevens Village Tribal Judge and I'm General Counsel for Tanana
Chiefs Conference.
This testimony will provide an overview of Alaska Native
Tribal Court successes and how this Committee can improve those
success stories and make for stronger communities and stronger
families.
There are 229 Alaska Native tribes and approximately a
third of those tribes have formal tribal courts. Tribal courts
currently handle child protection, adoption, domestic and
family violence, substance abuse issues and juvenile cases.
Tribes know that over 95 percent of child neglect, sexual abuse
violence and juvenile issues stem from substance abuse. Armed
with this knowledge, tribal courts focus on addressing the
underlying issues of substance abuse.
Unfortunately, these underlying issues are often childhood
traumatic events including child rape, child molestation, child
abuse and the issues are so deeply rooted that what we have
found in the tribal court system is that it's an entire
community that needs to focus on the healing and this is what
you see tribal courts engaging in. Community or restorative
justice, peace making, those are the terms that are often
described on this tribal court approach.
Tribal courts are not replicas of western court systems.
While they're required to follow the Indian Civil Rights Act,
they also incorporate judicial practices from the tribal
governments that existed before the federal and state judicial
systems made an appearance on our land. Practices that seek to
heal the individual, heal the family and address underlying
issues have worked to restore tribal communities for centuries
and they work today.
Now in my written testimony, I get more detailed into
exactly why tribal courts are working in rural Alaska, but I'd
like to paint a picture for the audience and for you, Senator,
of a circle system and it's hard to do justice to and explain
in words the circle system. But imagine a circle--a tribal
court circle sentence in which we have two main individual
participants to focus. A 30-year-old male who is a perpetrator
of domestic violence and his father who's a 60-year-old male
who is also the perpetrator of domestic violence. They sit in
the community in a circle, the entire community is invited
including VPSO, Troopers, religious leaders, elders, youth.
Sometimes if school's in session, an entire high school will go
to this circle to hear the lessons.
And really, what comes out of these circles is the truth
and it's hard to get to the truth in other systems, but the way
the circle works is everyone has an opportunity to talk about
the impacts of what the individuals are doing to the community,
to their families, to their children. Victims are able to
address their assailants. Children are able to address their
parents. In this instance that I'm thinking of, the 30-year-old
who is also a father, was able to address his father who is the
60-year-old and tell him the impacts that he had from watching
him beat up his mother his entire life.
And those lessons learned from those kind of the outskirts,
in seeing the dynamic unfold, really provided accountability to
all participants, but especially for the 30-year-old. The
success there was that we haven't seen the 30-year-old repeat a
domestic violence offense. Now the 60-year-old has repeated,
but what's interesting is the 60-year-old's wife has chose to
disengage in that relationship.
This is the practice that works for our people, these
issues are deeply rooted. Oftentimes in the circle, we invite
health aids, behavioral health aides, those experts who can get
our people on track. Case plans are often suggested and
individuals are asked to submit assessed behavioral health and
mental health assessments and follow the recommendations.
Now the tribal court model works for the limited cases our
tribes are able to handle with purely volunteer courts. There
is very little funding or confirmed authority for what has been
described, yet tribal leaders are dedicated to improving their
communities, and so they continued the healing practices that
have been done for centuries.
Tanana Chiefs Conference is one of the only entities that
provides technical assistance for tribal code and ordinance
drafting necessary to ensure tribal processes meet the
standards of the Indian Civil Rights Act and traditional laws.
Tribal courts need more in the form of confirmed authority
and funding to have an impact necessary to change our
communities for the better. Sixteen months ago, this Committee
held an oversight hearing on the Indian Law and Order
Commission Report, a road map for making Native America safer.
Now I'm pretty sure the staff and yourself have read the report
many times. The statistics submitted by my colleagues go over
what the report entails, and basically, the report kind of
summarizes what I experienced this weekend when I was visiting
a village and just hearing the youth talk about violence and
suicide like it was normal, it's acceptable, there's no shock
value anymore in our communities, it's accepted. The vision we
have for rural Alaska is healthy communities or this is not
acceptable.
I want to contribute in Tanana Chiefs and the tribes and
now the State will contribute to communities in which youth
talk about healthy lifestyles. The status quo in our villages
is unacceptable in any civilized country, is unacceptable in
America and in Alaska. The State Judicial and Law Enforcement
System does not serve rural Alaska well due to reasons of
funding size, remoteness, hubs centralization and deep cultural
divides. The system will never serve rural Alaska well. What is
needed is a new world order in rural Alaska, but one that is an
old world order in Indian policy and one that is very familiar
to this Committee, enhanced tribal self-determination at the
local level.
Today we asked you add to the tools Alaska tribal
governments need to strengthen our families to address the root
causes of substance abuse. What is needed is federal
legislation, which recognizes the authority of our tribal
governments to deal in the first instance with issues of local
domestic violence, sexual assault and substance abuse.
I applaud this Committee for taking action on specific
recommendations from the Law and Order Commission's report.
First, thank you for the repeal of section 910 of VAWA. Next,
thanks to you, Senator Murkowski, for including language in the
consolidated and further continuing appropriations act of 2015,
which mandates the BIA and the Department of Justice to report
to the relevant committees on the budgetary needs of tribal
courts PL280 states.
I hope this Committee will continue to hold the BIA and the
DOJ accountable for the report, which is now 60 days late and
that it will be complete in September, but before the end of
the fiscal year.
In addition, the tribes of Alaska hope this Committee will
continue on the progress made on the recommendations from the
law and order report.
In conclusion, the tribal court model has proven to heal
and strengthen families. This model has sustained on very
little funding or confirmed authority. Federal legislation to
confirm tribal court authority over domestic violence and
substance abuse matters coupled with additional funding for
tribal courts would go a long way to see that individuals and
families heal. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Singh follows:]
Prepared Statement of Natasha Singh, General Counsel and Tribal Court
Judge, Tanana Chiefs Conference
Chairman Barrasso, Vice-Chairman Tester and distinguished Members
of the Committee--including our very own Senator Murkowski--thank you
for holding today's hearing focused on strengthening Alaska Native
families. In the past, unfounded fears surrounding tribal authority
have prohibited discussion of how tribal courts can work with the state
to reduce recidivism and make reentry more successful. In 2014, the
status quo in Alaska marginalized and ignored the potential of tribally
based justice systems and tribal consortiums to provide more cost-
effective and responsive alternatives to prevent crime and keep all
Alaskans safe. Today, because of leaders like Senator Murkowski, the
discussion is able to move forward as tribes offer innovative ways in
which tribal programs can work with state and federal programs in order
to improve the safety of our state and provide for strong Alaska Native
families. It is a privilege and honor to testify on a topic which has
the potential to bring fundamental, lasting, profound and, most
importantly, desperately needed change across Alaska.
My name is Natasha Singh. I am a Stevens Village tribal member, a
tribal court judge and serve as General Counsel for the Tanana Chiefs
Conference. TCC is an intertribal health and social services consortium
of 37 federally recognized Tribes located in the Interior of Alaska. We
serve approximately 13,000 tribal members living in our villages or in
Fairbanks. Our territory occupies a mostly roadless area that is nearly
the size of Texas, stretching from Fairbanks clear up to the Brooks
Range and over to the Canadian border.
This testimony will provide an overview of current Alaska Native
tribal court successes and ways this committee is able to improve
tribal courts for safer communities and stronger families.
There are 229 Alaska Native tribes in which approximately one-third
have operating formal tribal courts. Tribal courts currently handle
child protection, adoption, domestic and family violence, substance
abuse issues, and juvenile cases. In the TCC region alone, we have over
150 on-going child protection cases.
Tribes know that over 95 percent of child neglect, sexual abuse,
violence and juvenile issues stem from substance abuse. Armed with this
knowledge, tribal courts focus on addressing the underlying issues of
substance abuse. Community or restorative justice, or peacemaking are
terms sometimes used to describe this approach used by tribal courts.
Tribal courts are not simply replicas of western court systems. While
they are required to follow the Indian Civil Rights Act they also
incorporate judicial practices from the tribal governments that existed
before the federal and state judicial systems made an appearance in our
lands. Practices that seek to heal the individual, heal the family, and
address underlying issues have worked to restore tribal communities for
centuries and they work today. Alaska Native tribal court practices are
successful because:
The parties involved know the tribal court judges. In
western courts this might be seen as possible judicial bias,
but for tribal courts this is a proven strength. First, the
judges know the family history of an individual which provides
insight to the underlying causes of the substance abuse.
Second, parties to tribal courts often interact with the tribal
court judges on a daily basis which provides for additional
accountability.
The community is invited and involved. Circle courts provide
a forum in which the community is invited to sit and discuss an
issue in a circle format. The community is able to participate
to ensure individuals and judges see the full picture of the
history and impact of an individual's unhealthy behavior.
Finally, with the community involved, individuals are more
accountable. Children may address their parents, victims may
address their assailants, elders address the community, all in
a safe, open and often religious circle in which the truth
emerges and healing begins.
The focus is to heal rather than to punish. Formal procedure
is set-aside to ensure outcomes are achieved. If a juvenile is
drinking, it is often because there are issues with the
parents. If a mother is cited for domestic violence, there are
likely child protection issues. State courts address cases by
isolated incidents whereas tribal courts address cases by
families. The circle's participants provide suggestions for an
individual and a family. Sometimes, a case plan is worked out.
Sometimes parents are paired with other parents that have
successfully worked a case plan in the past. Individuals obtain
the necessary mental health and behavioral health assessments
and community support is identified.
The tribal court model works for the limited cases our tribes are
able to handle with purely volunteer courts. There is very little
funding or confirmed authority for what has been described, yet tribal
leaders are dedicated to improving their communities and so they've
continued the healing practices that have been done for centuries.
Tanana Chiefs Conference is one of the only entities that provides
technical assistance for the tribal code and ordinances drafting
necessary to ensure tribal processes meet the standards of the Indian
Civil Rights Act and traditional laws. The funding TCC receives is
often grant based and not guaranteed. Tribal courts need more in the
form of confirmed authority and funding to have the impact necessary to
change our communities for the better.
Sixteen months ago this Committee held an oversight hearing on The
Indian Law and Order Commission Report: A Roadmap for Making Native
America Safer. That report was a mix of new research and a summary of
many past studies, all of which have documented too well the severe
crisis facing Alaska Native tribal communities. The interconnected
scourges across rural Alaska of domestic violence, sexual assault and
rape, child abuse and neglect, and substance abuse are undeniable, and
the time for positive congressional reform is long overdue.
The status quo in our villages is unacceptable in any civilized
country. It is unacceptable in America. And, it is unacceptable in
Alaska. The Law and Order Commission's report repeats what has been
amply documented for decades: that (1) the state judicial and law
enforcement system does not serve rural Alaska well, and (2) due to
reasons of funding, size, remoteness, hub centralization, and deep
cultural divides, that system will never serve rural Alaska well. What
is needed is a new world order in rural Alaska, but one that is an old
world order in Indian policy, and one that is very familiar to this
committee: enhanced tribal self-determination at the local level.
Forty-four years ago President Nixon proclaimed an enlightened new
federal policy of tribal self-determination, and Congress responded
with scores of new initiatives designed to make self-determination a
reality and a success for the Nation's Indian tribes. In time, one
small volume of the federal code grew to four, and in due course many
tribes across the country made enormous strides toward greater self-
determination. Yet some of the most important of these initiatives have
missed Alaska villages.
But fortunately, these legal errors can be corrected, and new legal
rules established that will support and add to the tools Alaska tribal
governments need to strengthen our families, and to address the root
causes of substance abuse. What is needed is federal legislation which
recognizes the authority of our tribal governments to deal in the first
instance with issues of local domestic violence, sexual assault, and
substance abuse. That is what is needed, that is what Commission after
Commission has called for, and that is what Congress, alone, can
accomplish.
Such measures, taken on this limited and regulated basis, is an
important--indeed vital--first step in securing Alaska tribes the tools
necessary to realize greater local self-determination and to deal
specifically with issues of domestic violence and substance abuse.
Local control in these areas will assure that (1) actions are taken by
the authorities having the greatest local knowledge; (2) actions can be
taken locally to intervene in unstable conditions which, if unchecked,
would otherwise lead to criminal acts, assaults or worse; (3) actions
can be taken by those who are in the best position to swiftly respond
to developing situations.
I applaud this Committee for taking action on specific
recommendations from the Law and Order Commission's report. First,
thank you for the repeal of Section 910 of Title IX of the Violence
Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013. Next, thanks to Senator Lisa
Murkowski for including language in the Consolidated and Further
Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015 which mandates that ``within 180
days of enactment of this Act, the Bureau [of Indian Affairs], in
coordination with the Department of Justice, is directed to report to
the House and Senate committees of jurisdiction on the budgetary needs
of tribal courts in [Public Law 280] States.'' See 160 Cong. Rec.
H9764-5 (Dec. 11, 2014). The Law and Order commission has identified
funding for tribal courts as an issue and our Senator has taken this
recommendation seriously.
We thank Senator Lisa Murkowski for her leadership in requiring
this report under the Act because the report is absolutely fundamental
to understanding the scope of the public safety epidemic facing tribal
in Alaska. The report will allow Congress to identify the true need
facing our tribal nations and quantify the amount of funds it will take
to address this need. Obtaining this budgetary data is an obvious first
step to addressing the public safety situation in our communities.
Unfortunately, the joint BIA and DOJ report was due to Congress in
June, but it has not yet been completed. The Tanana Chiefs Conference
met with the BIA in February and July, and sent a letter in April,
advocating for the completion of this report while also offering our
technical assistance and expertise. The BIA and DOJ declined TCC's
offer and proceeded without our help, but they have yet to produce the
report. It is now 60 days overdue. We appreciate that the BIA attended
the Alaska Tribal Court Development Conference earlier this month but
what we really need from the BIA at this point is the report. I hope
that this Committee will continue to hold the BIA and DOJ accountable
for the report and that it will be complete in September before the end
of this fiscal year.
In conclusion, the tribal court model has proven to heal and
strengthen families. This model has sustained on very little funding or
confirmed authority. Federal legislation to confirm tribal court
authority of domestic violence and substance abuse matters would go a
long way to see that individuals and families heal.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Natasha, I appreciate it a
great deal and know that I too, am really irritated at BIA, DOJ
for thus far ignoring us on that letter, so we're going to get
some action there. Welcome to the Committee, Greg.
STATEMENT OF GREGORY RAZO, VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT
CONTRACTING, COOK INLET REGION, INC.
Mr. Razo. Thank you, Senator. For the record, my name is
Gregory Peter Razo, I live here in Anchorage, Alaska, I work
for Cook Inlet Region Incorporated and I welcome the Senator
and the Committee to our region.
I've been involved in justice since we finished law school
together and that was back in--for me, it was in 1984. I come
from Mountain View, Alaska. I'm an urban Alaska Native and
that's really a perspective that I bring to things because
urban Alaska Natives comprise the largest sector of Alaska
Native population in Alaska because people live here in the
Mat-Su, the Kenai Peninsula and in Anchorage.
My Yupik side of the family is from the lower Yukon, my
grandmother was Matrona Kozevnikoff, she lived in Old Hamilton.
My family moved to Anchorage in the 1940s. My father is Pete
Razo and he was a first generation Mexican American from
Colorado.
I went to law school and then moved like you intended to
move back home as fast as we could and get to work. And my
first job was in Kodiak, Alaska and it was a job that changed
my life and my perspective because I worked for Roy H. Madsen,
the first and only Alaska Native judge in the Alaska Court
System and Judge Madsen, even though it was only for a year,
stayed in my life to this day. He taught me a lot, and from
there, I went on to become a prosecutor for 3\1/2\ years for
the State of Alaska and then I was in private practice, which
in a small town, is really working on the entire communities of
various problems from time to time because when you live in a
small town in Alaska, you have to be involved, you--if you're
going to be successful and be happy, then you are involved and
that's just the way it is and I was very involved in Kodiak on
numerous boards and commissions.
But in the practice of law, it was going to court every day
and that's really what serves to inform the testimony that I
provide to the Committee today. I was actually in court
representing folks, prosecuting or doing arraignments every
single day for almost 21 years and then I went to work at CIRI
and CIRI allows me to continue on trying to meet the needs of
Alaska Natives.
So these days, I was recently appointed to the Alaska
Criminal Justice Commission along with Commissioner Jessee and
Commissioner Coghill and it has been a fascinating experience
for me because it has allowed me to focus on what these days
we're calling smart justice, that a driven justice and the
ability to access the tremendous and research from Pew has been
fascinating to me because I learned about the idea of justice
reinvestment, the idea that we can no longer afford to just
build prisons. We are not correcting people in our corrections
system, so what do we do, what's the answer, how do we avoid
building prisons?
Well, it takes a comprehensive examination of your criminal
justice system and we're presented with the shocking data that
you read. Fifteen percent of the State's population are Alaska
Natives, 36 percent of the prison population are Alaska
Natives. In order to get into prison, more Alaska Natives per
capita are being arrested and sentenced than any other segment
of the population, so there's a crime problem.
And how do we deal with those? Those are really difficult
questions. I will inform the Committee about some of my
observations and conclusions after that practice, so we know
what the data is and I'm glad you had a chance to look at my
written testimony because I think it's important that you bring
that back to the Committee. The Pew research and especially the
innovative approach that the Department of Corrections is
beginning to take in Alaska to come up with a true plan and a
plan from the street level all the way to the Commissioner's
Office about intervening in the lives of prisoners, allowing
them a reentry plan and focusing them one-on-one as if they
were human beings because they are.
So I believe, Senator, that the best justice is community
based justice, and whether that's tribal communities or small
communities in Alaska, a community based justice is going to be
far more successful than a unified approach that Alaska uses.
We have seen where a centralized justice system is simply
unable to meet the needs of the widespread Alaskan populations
and unable to understand the cultures and the history and the
spirit of the people that live in rural Alaska.
Sending people in by a plane to deal with problems that
arise on a case-by-case basis, that doesn't work, you don't
understand how those problems began in the first place when you
do it that way. So community based justice just makes sense to
me. I can tell you, on an island, when you live on an island,
it really tends to develop community based justice apart from
what the formal rules say because having practiced in Kodiak, I
can tell you there may have been an official ban on plea
bargaining, but deals were made right and left every day and
that's the only way the justice system worked. You had a chance
to make innovative sorts of plea bargains that would send a
first-time offender, for example. Rather than have a
conviction, you could talk to the District Attorney and go in
and say hey, you know, my client is willing to go over and
spend, you know, 30 hours at the alcohol treatment agency, and
if he or she does that, you know, will that satisfy you, do you
think that's going to be sufficient? Oh, and we might need to
throw in some community work service.
But at the end of the day, you could come up with
reasonable answers to people's problems without throwing them
in jail and that really--I think it still happens throughout
Alaska in rural communities to some extent. But we need to
realize that that can be a norm, that can be how we do business
in Alaska.
So what we've been working on in the commission is the idea
of justice reinvestment, putting the money that we spend on
prisons into the systems that will help educate and help all
Alaska people, not just Alaska Natives, but particularly for
Alaska Natives and particularly for people in rural Alaska,
those needs are the greatest.
So I think why not use the systems that we have in place
throughout Alaska already? Over the years, since the passage of
the Indian Self-Determination Act and the ability for tribal
and nonprofit associations to perform healthcare, self
determinative healthcare on their own, we've established
amazing institutions that really work hard towards meeting the
needs of our people. Here in Anchorage, the South Central
Foundation has been one of the leaders in that area and they
work with Tanana Chiefs and they work with SEARHC and they work
with Yukon Kuskokwim and we work together in a consortium with
health based companies.
But the other thing I learned, I guess, when I practiced
was that I never had a client who came to me with just a legal
need, never did. They always brought other things, you know,
and I got to the point where I would explain that I'm their
legal counselor, but we're going to need this counselor and
this counselor and this counselor to get through this because
we need to talk about some other issues I'm hearing from you.
And at the end of the day, it always took this team of folks to
really--if you're going to make some meaningful change, it
takes a team. And so that was an education and that's what
happens in the tribal court setting, it takes a team of people,
it takes the elders, it takes the spiritual advisor, it takes
the victims, it takes the whole people involved in what
happened with this person to try and help them so that they
won't do it again. That's recidivism, you won't do it again.
I think that works, I think historically, it has worked for
Alaska people. I think it happens today and I think we need to
formalize to that and invest in it. Justice reinvestment is
about changing the laws so that they will allow for those sorts
of treatment in jails and for services once a person comes out
of jail in funding those. But it's not just changing the law
that's actually agreeing to spend the money that you're going
to save to help fund the systems that you're building. I
think--in the area of tribal courts, we've done an amazing job.
I think Alaska has reawakened to the fact--and Alaska Natives,
throughout the State, have reawakened to the fact that we can
be self determinative people and develop justice systems that
have existed for thousands of years and really use those, use
those within parameters that make sense for our people.
But what I worry about, I guess, is that in this time of
declining oil revenue where the State has far less money than
it's used to spending, that as we cut the budgets of the
agencies that are used to funding services for people, that we
forget that we need to feed this other system if it's going to
be successful. It's not just a Federal responsibility, it's not
just a State responsibility, but I do believe it's the
responsibility of government to foster community based systems
of justice no matter what they are, whether they're tribal or
they're cities or unincorporated areas. You know, I just think
that's the responsibility of government and I think it makes
sense because it saves money at the end of the day because you
don't have to build more prisons, right?
So partnership, we're used to partnering with all kinds of
folks here in Alaska. We do best when we partner. At CIRI, we
don't do deals unless we have a partner in with us. The
partnership that can exist between the tribes and the State and
the Federal government, I think, is a long way towards the
answer to this problem of recidivism and reentry.
So I appreciate the fact that the Committee has chosen to
focus on strengthening Alaska Native families because it's not
just about justice, it's not just about tribal courts, it
really is a system.
In the written testimony that I provided, I sent in some
examples of the CIRI nonprofits that are involved in reentry
services, that's the Alaska Native Justice Center, which you'll
hear about from Denise Morris. The South Central Foundation,
which is doing really innovative work, building Alaska Native
Warriors to combat the issues of domestic violence and sexual
assault, making sure that there's accountability but treatment
as well in a culturally appropriate way that people that are
Alaska Natives will understand and use. I got frustrated when I
was a daytime lawyer and it was because I would go to court
over and over and over again with many of the same people over
and over again and we'd do the same sentence over and over
again and it just didn't work. I mean, sure, we're going to
send them to treatment again and then they're going to do this
again, and a year later, I'm doing that case again, it's just
deja vu. There's got to be a better way to do it. I think
community based justice is a better way.
I really appreciate the fact that you've taken the
leadership role of directing some money to Alaska to form
Tribal Justice systems. Our State is a public law 280 State, so
we don't have the benefit of all of the funding that is
currently available, which isn't a lot, but there is currently
funding available for lower 48 tribes. But here in Alaska,
you're kind of on your own. California shares the same
situation, but here in Alaska, our tribes don't have land
bases, they don't have a way to earn income. They have access
to government contracting, but I will tell you that government
contracting isn't a great way to make quick money with high
margins, it's just not that easy for a tribe to enter into
federal contracting. And they don't have Indian gaming, which
really is supportive of many, many tribal systems in the lower
48, so we're truly at a disadvantage when it comes to tribal
justice systems and the funding of tribal courts and I
appreciate the difficulty that folks like Natasha and TCC who
are leaders in tribal court development are taking.
I guess the other thing, the other partnership I wanted to
highlight was a partnership that the idea has just come forward
here in Anchorage and it's just this summer and it's through
Alaska Legal Services Corporation where I've worked for many
years on their board. But the idea is medical/legal partnership
and it's more of the same thing, it's the idea that when a
customer/owner comes into a medical treatment facility that
they come not just with a medical problem, but they also come
with other issues that could immediately make them more well,
that if we can deal with their housing issue, which is a legal
problem, then we can make them more well and this idea of
medical/legal partnership is something that is being explored
with Alaska Legal Services and the Tribal Health Consortium and
South Central Foundation.
So I'm happy to be able to discuss a little bit with you
today about all of this, and please, if you have any questions
when we're done, ask them.
Prepared Statement of Gregory Razo, Vice President, Government
Contracting, Cook Inlet Region, Inc.
Introduction
My name is Gregory Peter Razo and I live at 2939 Dartmouth Drive,
Anchorage, Alaska. My e-mail address is: [email protected]. I work as a
Vice President at Cook Inlet Region Inc. (CIRI), CIRI is the Alaska
Native regional corporation created under the Alaska Native Settlement
Claims Act of 1971 as the Regional Alaska Native Corporation for the
geographic region of South-central Alaska. I am a descendant of my
Yupik (Eskimo) mother and my Hispanic father. My Yupik grandmother who
helped raise me in our home was Matrona Kozevnikoff . I grew up and was
educated in the public school system here in Anchorage, Alaska. I
graduated from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington in 1980, and I
received my law degree in 1984 from the Willamette University--College
of Law. I was admitted to the Alaska Bar in 1984 and the Washington
State Bar in 1985. I have remained an Active attorney with the Alaska
Bar for 30 years. My first job was as the law clerk to the Honorable
Roy H. Madsen (the only Alaska Native to have ever served on the Alaska
bench.) I was then an Assistant District Attorney in Kodiak, Alaska for
3\1/2\ years and then started a general private practice of law in 1989
until I left to join CIRI in 2005. I have represented juvenile and
adults in almost every conceivable situation.
Currently, I serve on the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission, which
began in 2014. I am President of the Alaska Legal Services Corporation
and Vice Chair of the Alaska Native Justice Center. I also serve on the
Board of Directors of the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) and Chair
the AFN Executive Governance Committee and the Resolutions Committee as
well as serving on the AFN Legislative and Litigation Committees. AFN
is a state-wide member ship organization founded in 1966 and active in
promoting the interests of all Alaska Natives. Finally, (for these
purposes) I am a member of the Alaska Department of Corrections (ADOC),
Alaska Prisoner Reentry Statewide Council, co-chaired by the Governor
and Lieutenant Governor charged with steering the Department of
Correction's new ``Alaska Prisoner Reentry Initiative.'' (Please see
Attachment Two, of my written testimony which is an ADOC summary of the
The Alaska Department of Corrections, Recidivism Reduction Plan,
January 15, 2015 (Revised May 1, 2015) containing the ADOC Alaska
Prisoner Reentry Initiative.) *
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* The information referred to has been retained in the Committee
files and can be found at http://www.correct.state.ak.us/doc/
Recidivism%20Reduction%20Plan.pdf.
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Over the past two years, my employer CIRI has allowed me to focus
on issues concerning justice for Alaska Natives. I began by working on
the Board of the Alaska Native Justice Center (ANJC.) ANJC was
established in 1993 by CIRI as a tribal non-profit to address Alaska
Natives' unmet needs regarding the Alaska civil and criminal justice
system in response to the increasing disproportionate rates of
victimization, incarceration and other justice-related issues impacting
Alaska Natives throughout Alaska.
Under the Alaska Statute creating the Alaska Criminal Justice
Commission (ACJC or the Commission), ANJC was asked to appoint one
commissioner which I lobbied my fellow ANJC Board members to be me. I
began my service with the Commission by meeting first with its Chair
(former Alaska Supreme Court Justice Alex Bryner) who wished to impress
upon me and receive a commitment that I would understand, utilize, and
maximize my role as the only Alaska Native member of the Commission
whose recommendations might effect a population of Alaska Natives
disproportionately represented in Alaska's prisons and substantially
challenged by the Alaska Criminal Justice system, as a minority
population. Since October of last year, the Commission has inundated
each commissioner with information facts and figures to enable us to do
our important work.
I appreciate the opportunity to represent my Alaska Native people,
in my own, way by sharing my thoughts before the Honorable members of
the Committee, their staff and the public on the important issue of
``Strengthening Alaska Native Families.'' I hope to share some of what
I know and have learned concerning ``Recidivism, Reentry and Tribal
Courts in our home of Alaska. I will also supplement my testimony with
relevant attachments for the Committee concerning actions currently
underway here in Alaska.
Recidivism and Reentry
In 2013, Alaska Native people comprise 15 percent of the total
population of the entire State. Disproportionately, Alaska Native
people comprise 36 percent of the Alaska prison population. Overall,
racial minorities are disproportionately incarcerated in Alaska
prisons. Consequently, in terms of the overall prison population,
Alaska Native men and women reentering society from prison are a
significant and disproportional population. We have great need.
Alaska Native people may come from a community in remote rural
Alaska, or their communities may be the urban communities of Alaska
such as Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau. No matter, returning Alaska
Native people coming out of prison are in need of ``community and
family support'' if they hope to succeed and not reoffend. Likewise,
the families and communities (the homes) of Alaska Native prisoners
need support while their family members are in custody in order to be
ready to receive this population and assist them in their reintegration
into productive society. To achieve support towards these goals
sufficient funding dollars must be budgeted for these purposes,
however, the prospect of Alaska's potential ``Justice Reinvestment
Initiative'' gives hope for improvement.
According to the Criminal Justice Institute (CJI) , ``Over the past
decade, Alaska's unified jail and prison population has grown by 27%--
nearly three times faster than the state's resident population. Alaska
currently spends more than $330 million annually on corrections, up 50
percent since 2005. Despite these expenditures, nearly two out of every
three inmates who leave Alaska's prisons return within three years.''
To deal with this reality, in June 2015, Alaska's state leaders,
Governor Bill Walker, Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike
Chenault, Senate President Kevin Meyer and Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court Dana Fabe, launched the Justice Reinvestment Initiative and
enlisted the assistance of the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Crime and
Justice Institute in an effort to develop fiscally sound, data-driven
and evidence-based sentencing and corrections policies. Alaska with the
help of the PEW-CJI team, is beginning a ``comprehensive review of the
Alaska criminal justice system, helping the state to develop a set of
data-driven reforms to better protect public safety while controlling
corrections costs. The team will work with Alaska criminal justice
administrators and political leaders and leaders from various
organizations over the next eight months as they examine the drivers of
the state's prison population, the policies and practices that are
affecting the population and criminal justice outcomes and develop
policy reforms to reduce unnecessary prison growth and improve public
safety.'' (Attachment One, of my written testimony for the Committee's
review is a presentation given to the Alaska Criminal Justice
Commission on ``Prison Drivers'' in Alaska.) *
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* The information referred to has been retained in the Committee
files and can be found at http://www.ajc.state.ak.us/acjc/doc/
part1.pdf.
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At this time in Alaska, due to the declining price of oil, our
State is faced with a substantial fiscal problem based upon a lack of
accustomed oil revenue. This resulting ``budget crisis'' for the State
of Alaska is forcing all Alaskans to reevaluate how state government
provides services. I believe that while it is the tendency of
government to suffer from inertia when faced with the prospect of
change, at this particular time in Alaska, the inertia is being
overcome by many new efforts underway to change the way services are
provided in both rural and urban Alaska to make them effective and
affordable.
The State of Alaska is coming to the realization that we imprison
too many people in Alaska and we cannot afford to build new prisons to
deal with the consequences of our criminal justice system and racial,
social and economic challenges. In my opinion, what needs to occur and
what seems to be happening is a focus on ``community based justice.''
Community based justice allows for the use of community organizations
and structures to supplement or replace the current justice system
centralized organization management of the State of Alaska.
Community based healthcare and social service has been shown to
work in Alaska. Alaska Natives have successfully used their ability to
achieve self-determination supported by the Indian Self-Determination
and Education Assistance Act of 1975, Public Law 638, to develop highly
successful and functional systems of support and advancement for Alaska
Native people around the State. Since the passage of PL-638, Alaska
Native Tribes and Tribal Non-Profit Associations have shown that they
can build, operate and maintain facilities to help meet the substantial
health and social needs of Alaska Natives. The use of Federal
Compacting and contracting, along with Federal grant opportunities have
allowed development of competent systems across Alaska in both urban
and rural communities. Why can't this system be augmented to address
the legal/justice needs of Alaska Natives? The answer is that it can.
For thousands of years, Alaska Tribal nations and communities have
recognized that there are no lines that exist between health/wellness,
social, legal and spiritual needs. All of these needs comprise the
whole person's needs and they all intersect in a myriad of ways. In
July of this year, a conference on ``Medical-Legal Partnerships'' was
held by Alaska Legal Services Corporation. The presentation made the
case that legal intervention early on in the case of a person seeking
medical treatment can serve to resolve many of the problems affecting
their wellness. Early legal intervention can help resolve homelessness
and unfair eviction, denial of social security benefits and food
assistance, employment discrimination, and the list goes on.
Law/Justice, Health/Wellness and Social Services exist in a
continuum of care for Alaska Native people and everyone.
Examples of existing Alaska Native organizations partnering with
Federal and State government on Reentry and Recidivism issues affecting
Alaska Natives:
Southcentral Foundation (SCF)
SCF is an Alaska Native-owned, nonprofit health care organization,
founded by CIRI, serving 65,000 Alaska Native and American Indian
customer/owners in Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, and the 55
rural villages that make up the Anchorage Service Unit. SCF's mission
is: Working together with the Native Community to achieve wellness
through health and related services.
Southcentral Foundation surveyed its community and identified three
top needs; domestic violence, child abuse, and child neglect. SCF
created the following corporate objective to reduce the rate of
domestic violence, child abuse and neglect. This objective has been
incorporated in work initiatives throughout SCF's 80 programs.
SCF's Family Wellness Warriors Initiative (FWWI) is one of the
programs developed as a response to these serious threats to the health
and wellness:
the increasing prevalence of family violence threatening the
essential core of Alaska Native cultures, and
the usual way of responding by increasing law enforcement
and child protection efforts ex post facto was aggravating, not
helping, the problem by further disrupting families when
parents were sent to prison and children to foster care--often
with non-Native families.
The FWWI is addressing the statewide challenges of domestic
violence, sexual violence, child maltreatment and trauma faced by
Alaska Native people in communities throughout the state. It is founded
on evidence-based and promising culturally appropriate practices and
incorporates many aspects of cutting-edge, trauma-focused therapeutic
practices. The approach used includes intensive education and training,
leadership development, parent education, offender rehabilitation, and
family and community support.
A Case for Reentry Support
According to the Alaska Prisoner Reentry Task Force's The Five-year
Prisoner Reentry Strategic Plan, 2011-2016, Alaska experienced
considerable growth in its prison populations during the last decade.
In 2009, for the first time in 38 years, 26 states successfully reduced
their prison populations. Alaska was not among them. In marked
contrast, Alaska has the 11th fastest prison population growth rate in
the United States. From 1982-2007, Alaska experienced a 152 percent
increase in its prison population. In 2009, 1 in 36 Alaskans were under
the jurisdiction of the Alaska Department of Corrections, up from 1 in
90 Alaskans in 1982.
The disproportionate number of Alaska Native people incarcerated in
Alaska's prisons is deeply disturbing. While Alaska Native people make
up about 15 percent of the state's population, they constitute about 36
percent of all prisoners in custody. Moreover, Alaska Native people
comprise 50.8 percent of all prisoners in custody for sex offenses.
In a 2007 Alaska Judicial Council Study, Criminal Recidivism in
Alaska reported that 66 percent of released prisoners are back in
custody within three years of release. Most of them, according to the
study, return in the first six months. The fact that the recidivism
rate is as high as it is clearly demonstrates that additional efforts
and approaches must be made to cause a reduction in this rate.
Given the disparate number of Alaska Native individuals in custody,
it seems clear that a culturally appropriate model of reentry care
using Alaska Native strengths and focusing on the family and community
is needed. Data supports both the need for an increase in culturally
appropriate interventions and the adoption of more effective reentry
services. The Alaska Natives Commission 1992 Annual Report found,
``There is a prevalent misunderstanding or misconception on the part of
many non-Natives that only by administering ``western justice'' can
there be justice, and this perspective is ultimately harmful to the
pursuit of alternative dispute resolution strategies at the village
level.'' One need only remember that Alaska Native people had systems
in place for millennia before introduction of the western system.
Challenges. Alaska has a unified prison system in which all
facilities are funded by the Alaska Department of Corrections (ADOC).
Its Anchorage facility, the Anchorage Correctional Complex (ACC),
combines a jail and pre-trial facility for the Municipality of
Anchorage (MOA)--a combined city--county government. Thus, there are
three major constituencies with significant stakes in this project--the
State of Alaska, MOA, and the Alaska Native community. Each has a
unique perception and stake in this issue.
The State of Alaska is concerned about the budget aspects because
it bears the costs of all people in the corrections system including
those incarcerated for any reason. It also pays for the court system
and the cost of prosecuting felonies in Anchorage. Since most of the
state's revenues come from oil, the precipitous plunge in oil prices
has created one of the worst budget deficits in the nation and the
legislature is desperate to save any money it can. Since the ADOC
budget and number of people incarcerated has been increasing faster
than major crime and the population, the legislature created a
commissioner level task force to examine the issues and make
recommendations. The fact that the number of people incarcerated was
predicted to continue growing by 3%/year and, in spite of just opening
a new $250 million correctional center, ADOC was at 101 percent of its
capacity. Among the findings and recommendations of that group were
Finding--recidivism at 63.54 percent was highest among
youthful offenders, Alaska Natives, and misdemeanants
Finding--unsentenced individuals account for 40 percent of
ADOC's population at any time
Finding--felony convictions for non-violent crimes and
parole violations were among the top 4 factors driving prison
population growth
Recommendation--partner with Alaska Native entities
Recommendation--improve and expand collaborations among
stakeholders
For its part, MOA's motivation is focused on public safety. A slew
of headline making news about recent violence and homicides has created
public perception that the city is not safe. This has become a major
issue in the upcoming election and a public forum was held recently. As
a result, every candidate pledged to address it. While perception does
not equate to fact, the widespread perception and revelations that the
Anchorage Police Department had a huge number of vacancies has made the
topic one the public is demanding be addressed. In a tight budget as
well, MOA is motivated because it pays for prosecution of all non-
felony crimes within the jurisdiction including DUI and domestic
violence.
Finally, SCF is motivated because it, as a major Native
organization, wants to eliminate the disparate impact crime and
incarceration is having on wellness in the Native community. It
recognizes that the high proportion of Alaska Natives at ACC is 2.43
times higher compared to the general population--a disparity even worse
than the 1.89 times higher for all ADOC prisons. Given that
incarceration appears to have no positive and lots of negative impacts
the Native community, SCF is willing to assume a leadership role, as it
did against family violence, to find better ways to address these
issues.
A Model for Reentry
Through FWWI, a more culturally resonant reentry support is being
provided to the inmates of the Transformational Living Community (TLC)
at both the Palmer Correctional Facility and the Hiland Mountain
Correctional Facility. Although FWWI's target population is Alaska
Native/American Indian inmates, all TLC program participants are
encouraged to take part, regardless of ethnicity.
This model was developed over decades of working through Alaska
Native people. The primary focus of this approach is to provide a safe
place for offenders, regardless of their crime, to heal from their own
past trauma and enable them to explore strategies in order to change
their thinking patterns and future behavior. Its aim is to reduce
recidivism rates among participants in the reentry program, thus making
our communities safer.
The reentry component of FWWI addresses the mental, emotional and
spiritual health needs of high-risk offenders in the process of reentry
with the goal to provide them with tools for developing safe, healthy
relationships and reducing recidivism. Reentry support services are
designed for those who are exhibiting mental health problems, most
associated with trauma, that include depression or other mood
disorders, relationship problems, PTSD, anxiety disorders and
substance-use disorders.
Components of the model include:
An SCF employee working full time in the prison with TLC
inmates, providing monthly reports.
SCF employees attending TLC graduations and tracking TLC
graduates whereabouts and contact activity.
Pre-release meetings (and a flyer) to go over post-release
support options and to prepare for reentry orientation.
Same-day release orientation providing information and
resource opportunities including services and support
materials. During the orientation, TLC graduates meet with
FWWI's clinical team to discuss learning circle support
services (more than 65 weekly groups available) as part of
their relapse prevention plan. Graduates who attend the
orientation within two weeks post-release receive a generous
care package.
Key Concepts of the Reentry Model
Key concepts of this Reentry Model focus on connecting Alaska
Native people to their culture and using methods they can relate to
through the following trainings:
1) Providing a five-day Arrigah House (AH), pre-release, intensive
rehabilitation experience to address the effects of trauma both in harm
caused and harm received;
2) Providing transitional services that will follow inmates pre-
release and post-release;
3) Providing a five-day intensive Beauty for Ashes (BFA) training
for reentry participants and family, as appropriate;
4) Providing advanced leadership opportunities through a five-day
intensive Advanced Leader Education and Training (ALET) for reentry
participants who desire to continue their positive growth pattern
through opportunities to give back to their community and become part
of the solution; and
5) Providing follow-up learning circles skill building groups to
reentry participants and their families.
Arrigah House (AH): This 40-hour training has been offered at the
Palmer Correctional TLC program since 2004 and the Hiland Mountain's
TLC program since 2012. This five-day intensive cultural model of care
addresses cross generational trauma due to domestic violence, sexual
abuse and child neglect. AH will offer training and healing
opportunities to TLC inmates, ideally within six months prior to their
release. Providing this training addresses environmental issues that
may have been instrumental in the development of maladaptive behaviors.
In essence, this will aim to improve the level of support and
ultimately minimize the chance of relapse or a return to unhealthy
coping techniques.
Beauty for Ashes (BFA): This five-day, 50-hour intensive cultural
model of care addresses cross generational trauma stemming from family
violence, sexual abuse and child maltreatment. BFA will offer post-
release training for TLC graduates who have been identified as being
at-risk for reoffending. The goal of this training is to reduce the
rate of recurring incidents, to equip participants with the skills and
tools they need to successfully address and reverse unhealthy coping,
thinking and behavior, restore their families, reunite with their
children, and to end the cycle of harm. This training opportunity will
be open to family members of program participants who qualify through
the screening process.
Advanced Leader Education and Training (ALET): FWWI adheres to a
service versus responsibility model in its reentry efforts. There is an
expectation that those who have successfully completed the reentry
process must be part of helping others who may have similar struggles
or may be at-risk for causing harm. This effort is vital and encourages
both accountability and sustainability. ALET is a five-day, 40-hour
workshop for those who wish to become a group facilitator and
presenter. This workshop provides the necessary tools and techniques to
facilitate small groups in alignment with FWWI's established practices.
It also provides an introduction to public speaking strategies designed
to break the silence of violence and abuse through teaching topics and
sharing personal stories.
Additional SCF resources and provisions
Other support from SCF includes a full range of behavioral and
primary care services to include Health Education classes. Key
highlights of those services include:
Learning circle follow-ups: Learning circles offer a variety of
weekly educational and supportive small groups through the SCF
Behavioral Services Division, Medical Services Health Education
Department as well as FWWI that address a range of issues including
anger, anxiety, healthy boundaries, marital dynamics in healthy
relationships, parenting issues, conflict resolution, role playing,
modeling, reentry support, veteran support, family wellness principles
and other identified and relatable needs.
The Four Directions outpatient program provides substance abuse and
dual diagnosis assessments, substance abuse and mental health
counseling, group counseling for men, women and children. The program
addresses a range of topics including: parenting, domestic violence,
anger, relationships, symptom management, anxiety and depression,
relapse prevention, community recovery skills, life skills and health
and wellness. Additional services offered at Four Directions include:
early recovery skills, relapse prevention, family education, seeking
safety, healthy relationships, social support/aftercare, urinalysis
testing and 12-step traditional values.
Quyana Clubhouse is a safe, welcoming place for Alaska Native
adults with severe and persistent mental illness. The day program
blends medical services with Alaska Native tradition and structure in a
nurturing environment. The Quyana Clubhouse program offers case
management, medication management, primary care services, tobacco
cessation programs and more.
Outcome measures and program evaluation
SCF conducts regular extensive evaluations of all inmates at the
Palmer Correctional and Hiland Mountain Transitional Living Community
(TLC) program who attend an Arrigah House while in the prison system as
well as any former inmate who attends one of FWWI's trainings. TLC has
a 28 percent recidivism rate. Without TLC inmates show 63.5 percent
recidivism.
To obtain quantitative data, a multi-dimensional evaluation survey
is utilized which aligns with identified program goals and objectives.
The instrument incorporates standardized scales and subscales which
specifically evaluate identified domains of personal effect, protective
factors and participant skills development. Statistically significant
positive change has been evidenced among participants with reductions
in substance abuse, difficulty controlling anger and the risk of
purposeful harm or threat to harm. Men report a stronger degree of
positive change in depression, substance abuse, anger control and self-
esteem, maintained over time. Of program participants, 74.98 percent
report positive change in trauma symptomology. Gender comparisons
indicate that positive change is significant among both men and women
(p<0.01 and p=0.01, respectively).
Summary
Alaska's statistics continue to reflect the extent to which
additional culturally appropriate reentry services are needed. A
supportive and cooperative network that offers rehabilitation and
reentry services pre-, mid- and post-release is critical to the success
of each program participant and ultimately the reduction of recidivism
rates for those who participate. Southcentral Foundation's 80 programs
are part of the solution.
Contact Information
Southcentral Foundation
Katherine Gottlieb, MBA, DPS
President/CEO
Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC)
Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC) stands for people, partnership and
potential. CITIC is a tribal nonprofit organization established by CIRI
in 1983 designed for helping Alaska Native and American Indian people
residing in the Cook Inlet Region of south-central Alaska reach their
full potential. CITC believes that when we work together, we can help
each other develop our strengths and talents, and become successful and
self-sufficient individuals, families and communities.
Since its inception in 1983, CITC has grown from a fledgling,
grass-roots operation with only three employees, to one of the nation's
preeminent culturally responsive social-service organizations serving
more than 12,000 people annually, and employing nearly 250 passionate
and caring individuals.
CITC offers its Participants an array of support services includes
education, employment and training services, workforce development,
family preservation, and support for individuals recovering from
addiction and substance abuse.
Chanlyut
Administered by Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Chanlyut is a two-year
residential rehabilitation program that offers a new beginning for men
who want to become productive members of society and turn around self-
destructive patterns in their lives. Chanlyut provides a structured,
yet self-governed path for participants to overcome addiction,
homelessness, and/or reentering society after incarceration.
Chanlyut residents pay no fees to enter the program, and receive
food, clothing, education and all other services at no cost. Chanlyut
operates several resident-run small businesses that serve as vocational
training schools and provide participants with marketable skills upon
graduation from the program. Chanlyut residents receive no pay for
their work, and all revenues go directly back into Chanlyut's programs
and services, with more than 43 percent of Chanlyut operating costs
generated through Chanlyut enterprises.
Chanlyut was founded in Anchorage in 2007, and is replication of
the successful Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco. Chanlyut is
the only program of its kind in the State of Alaska, and provides an
important alternative to more conventional services that have not been
successful for a certain segment of the population.
In a community with insufficient options for men returning from
incarceration, substance abuse treatment, or the streets, Chanlyut
fills a critical gap in job-skills development that lead to self-
sufficiency.
Chanlyut's Core Values
Chanlyut, is a program of Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. (CITC) ,
it is a two-year residential rehabilitation program where the residents
live, work and learn together with the ultimate goal of returning to
society as productive citizens. CITC offers its services to Chanlyut
participants at no cost to them, their families or the state. All
revenue generated through the program's business-training ventures is
used to support the program and help keep its doors open to serve
others in the future.
Chanlyut is a replica of the Delancey Street Foundation, and has no
professional staff of psychologists, psychiatrists or counselors, as
therapy depends upon a rigorous peer-to-peer mentoring structure.
Chanlyut has an ``each one, teach one'' philosophy similar to what
happens in families, where the members are dependent upon one another
as they grow to develop an identity and independence. In turn, this
allows participants to ease into society on their own, while still
maintaining a sense of continuity and connection with the family.
Chanlyut's self-empowerment process of growth, change and
interdependence teaches residents to rely on their own strengths, and
help one another develop. The program stresses that: Individuals must
take responsibility for their own actions to create viable options for
their future. Chanlyut prepares its residents to live and work
effectively as leaders, while having a positive influence in the
community.
Chanlyut focuses on traditional values, including:
1. integrity, self-esteem, and a purpose and direction in life
2. work ethic, the importance of self-reliance, and the dignity
of earning one's own
3. helping others as a central means to improve self-esteem
Participants gain vocational, educational and social skills through
a consistent training and education, which begins as soon as a
participant enters the program. Chanlyut's current vocational/training-
enterprises include a neighborhood diner, wholesale foods and
janitorial services.
Participants who faced previous challenges of gaining or keeping
steady employment, are now individuals who have successfully launched
and managed these business ventures that have become an important
source of working revenue for the program.
Chanlyut's educational training begins on a participant's first day
as they become involved in a variety of daily workgroups that are
designed to improve their work habits, reading skills, vocabulary,
comprehension and public speaking abilities. During these sessions,
each resident speaks for a few minutes on a specific subject being
discussed by the group. This way, participants are exposed to the
subject matter being discussed, as well as the experience of group
speaking, and connecting an idea or theory to a personal experience.
If not already a high school graduate, each resident is expected to
have earned a GED before graduating from the program.
Chanlyut Program Phases
Chanlyut's vocational training is accomplished in three phases:
The first is in-house training, where residents are assigned duties
within the residential facility, with the focus being learning basic
skills, developing good work habits and establishing self-discipline.
When residents have mastered this first level, they begin testing these
skills in a variety of jobs with Chanlyut businesses.
Depending on program progress, residents are eligible for Academy
at 14 months, during which they may engage in vocational training
outside of Chanlyut social enterprises. After a participant has
achieved a desired level of competence, and has at least 20 months in
the program, they are eligible to move on to the third vocational phase
of getting a job with a commercial business in the community, where
they must work successfully during the last four months prior to
graduation. Learning how to manage one's own personal finances is a key
component of this phase, as residents begin to earn their first pay
since entering the program.
Chanlyut residents are taught to work for everything they get, so
they appreciate what they have even more. Every incentive-from moving
from a crowded bunk-bed style dorm into a semi-private room; or earning
a promotion in one's job; or accepting responsibility one's decisions--
must be earned through self-discipline, hard work and caring for others
as well as one's self. Experience shows the more privileges residents
earn, the more responsibilities they are willing to receive, and the
harder they work.
The final area of education in Chanlyut is social training where
residents are taught to give something back through community service.
Chanlyut residents volunteer for Boys & Girls Club, shoveling snow,
setting up for events, caring for a city park they have adopted,
helping with fundraisers and helping with neighborhood cleanup.
Participants are encouraged to vote if they are so eligible.
One of the central areas of education in program is interpersonal
relationships, as the majority of residents have a very difficult time
interacting with others. This learning happens constantly through
communal living and formal program structure. Because residents live
and work together, they must learn diplomacy skills, and how to accept
authority and dispense it to others.
Through a group dynamic called ``Groups and Games,'' emphasis is
not on an individual's problems, but on his style of relating to
others. During these group sessions, residents explore their feelings
for one another, and their actions and behaviors toward one another in
two-hour sessions twice a week. They learn how the impact of what they
say can be brought into greater harmony with what they hope to
communicate to others.
These groups also allow residents the opportunity to vent their
tensions productively and in a supportive environment. The games also
help to instill a sense of humor about one's self, one's life, and
one's problems.
While Chanlyut residents make a minimum two-year commitment to the
program, Chanlyut does encourage some residents to stay longer to serve
as role models for other participants, thereby strengthening each
resident's resolve to succeed.
Residents are taught to demand of themselves that they make
restitution to society. As a result, society may offer them another
chance to be productive citizens in the community, enabling them to
foster their own self-sufficiency, while living the values Chanlyut
teaches and that hold our society together.
Alaska Native Justice Center (ANJC)
ANJC's Mission is to promote justice through culturally based
advocacy, prevention and intervention initiatives to restore dignity,
respect and humanity to all Alaska Natives. ANJC work to integrate
Alaskan Native culturally based advocacy programs and intervention
initiatives necessary to assist in the resolution of legal
circumstances such as divorce, child custody, domestic violence/sexual
assault, minor in consuming violations and adult prisoner reentry.
The Adult Reentry Program involves the use of services targeted at
promoting the effective reintegration of offenders back to communities
upon release. Reentry programming, which involves a comprehensive case
management approach, is intended to assist offenders in acquiring
positive life skills necessary to succeed in the community. The Alaska
Native Justice Center offers both pre- and post-release services for
participants enrolled in six-month program.
Pre-Release Services Include: Participant Orientation,
Individualized Case Management, Individualized Transition Planning,
Employment and Workforce Assistance, Housing Assistance, and
Transportation Vouchers.
The Adult Re-entry Program currently works in the Palmer
Correctional Center & Hiland Mountain Correctional Center providing
pre-release services.
Post-Release Services Include: Participant Orientation,
Individualized Case Management, Moral Recognition Therapyr,
Transitional Mentor & Peer-to-Peer Support Group(s), Resources for
alcohol and other drug rehabilitation, Vocational Training and Work
Program Assistance, Housing Assistance, Transportation & Bus Vouchers,
and Community Service Participation.
The Adult Reentry Program assists participants in developing
greater self-esteem, responsible attitudes, positive new habits and
conditioning to successfully transition into the community and reduce
the rate of re-offending. This program is intended for individuals who
are 180 days pre- and post-release in the Municipality of Anchorage
service area.
The ANJC's Adult Reentry Program funded by the U.S. Department of
Justice, Second Chance Act (SCA) grant works in collaboration with the
State of Alaska Department of Corrections (SOA DOC) to guide
participants in proactively addressing the barriers they may face
during the transition from prison back into the community.
Partners for Progress (PFP)
PFP operates a Walk In Reentry Center in downtown Anchorage. PFP
sees 40-60 people per day and provides Employment and Job Readiness
assistance, housing and other support services PFP also refers to ANJC
and other providers for more specialized treatment and support
services. PFP sees a high number of Alaska Natives who are stuck in
Anchorage because they cannot go home due to probation/parole treatment
requirements. Many of these Alaska Natives are from rural Alaska and
they have never lived in an urban setting or held an urban job. They
are used to fishing and subsisting, but due to legal requirements, they
are now forced to 'Reenter', in Anchorage. PFP has responded to some of
these needs by developing a Native Men's Group that meets weekly at the
Reentry Center. A successful Native Elder leads this group. His job is
to help other Native men get around Anchorage, apply for social
security and other assistance and use our computer lab.
PFP wants to see Telemedicine used to provide Treatment for those
on Parole and Probation so people can go home to their villages. The
infrastructure is in place for Telemedicine/telehealth, why not use it
for Mental Health and treatment services such as support meetings and
sex offender treatment? Let's utilize currently existing services and
structures to meet the complementary needs of the justice system.
Partners For Progress continues to collaborate with many other
organizations in Anchorage and around the state to improve reentry
services, reduce recidivism and increase restorative justice programs
for our most disadvantaged.
For more information about Partners For Progress Adult Reentry
Program, please contact:
Doreen Schenkenberger
Executive Director
Partners For Progress
Conclusion
Investment and Justice reinvestment in community based justice will
result in a more successful outcome for Alaska Natives and their
communities as incarcerated Alaska Natives reenter their communities,
be they urban and commercial, or rural and traditional communities. The
use of partnership with Alaska Native Tribes and Tribal non-profit
associations can achieve self-determination and success in meeting
Alaska Native Justice need. Justice needs are part of a continuum that
also includes health/wellness and social services.
After a career of 21 years of practicing law in Kodiak, Alaska,
both prosecuting and defending every manner of human difficulty, I
testify that each person the justice system brought to court had more
than just a ``legal'' need. A team of services was always necessary to
address any given situation and the problem presented to the Alaska
Justice system was never addressed solely by incarceration.
Alaska Natives have used Federal statutory authority to increase
their self-determination, improve the provision of health and wellness
services and begun to address the social needs of our people. Reentry
and recidivism programs, Justice programs and Tribal courts require
sustainable funding and they work best when compacted or contracted for
by government to allow self determination by the Alaska Native People.
Community based justice in Alaska can succeed.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you. Jeff, welcome.
STATEMENT OF JEFF JESSEE, CEO, ALASKA MENTAL HEALTH TRUST
AUTHORITY
Mr. Jessee. Well, thank you, Senator, and thank you for
this opportunity. While I'm not sure it was necessary to
emphasize the decades that I've been working in this area----
Senator Murkowski. I'm with you.
Mr. Jessee.--I happen to have had this for a while. I came
to Alaska in 1980 as a Vista volunteer out of law school
working for legal services and what now is Disability Law
Center for 15 years and then went on to work at the Mental
Health Trust for the last 20. In addition to being a member of
the Criminal Justice Commission, which was set up under the
leadership of Senator Coghill, I'm also the co-chair of the
Recidivism Reduction Plan Workgroup. Now my co-chair in that
endeavor is Commissioner Ron Taylor from the State Department
of Corrections and I want to really briefly talk about
Commissioner Taylor.
You can't underestimate how important it is to have, in
this effort, the support of a Commissioner of the Department of
Corrections with vision about how to solve these problems, not
only a vision about what needs to be done within the
Department, but a vision about what other partners in the
community have to do for his agency to be successful at
returning people into the community as productive citizens.
This Reduction Plan Workgroup came as a result of some
legislative intent language two years ago. Now this legislative
intent language was really important because historically, when
people talk about recidivism, they talk about the usual
suspects, the Department of Public Safety, the Department of
Corrections, the Court System, the Department of Law and the
conversation started to get developed where it's like you know
what, those are the guys that catch them and put them in prison
and keep them in there.
You know who are the agencies that really have a huge
impact on keeping them out when they leave, it's Alaska Housing
Finance Corporation, it's the Department of Labor and Workforce
Development, it's the Department of Health and Social Services,
it's our tribal partners because what we know is to keep people
productive in the community, they need housing, employment and
support for recovery.
I know you're very familiar with trust beneficiaries, they
range from people with developmental disabilities to
Alzheimer's disease, related dementia, traumatic brain injury,
mental health and substance abuse. Sixty percent of Department
of Corrections inmates are trust beneficiaries. They serve
longer sentences and they recidivate at a higher rate.
`` So these are critical issues to the mental health trust,
which is why we've worked so hard with Senator Coghill, with
Commissioner Taylor and others to address these issues.
I want to talk about a couple things. You know, yeah, we're
doing great things, but I tend to see these hearings as well,
what can you do for us and so there's a couple things I think
that you might be able to do for us and some of them aren't
immediately intuitively obvious. Well, why would the Committee
on Indian Affairs in dealing with strengthening families,
Native families want to deal with some of these things. Well,
one, which is absolutely critical is housing. If we don't have
housing for people when they come out of Corrections, supported
housing for those people with behavioral health needs, sober
housing for those people that are trying to maintain sobriety,
then their chances of being successful in the community are
very, very low. So when you look at your congressional agenda
and you see things like the NAHASDA funding for Native Housing
Authorities, the Home Program, the Housing Trust, those may not
immediately jump out, except maybe NAHASDA, as things that
would relate directly to this issue, but they do. And even
small amounts of money in the Housing Trust and Alaska being a
minimum allotment State, that money can be put to very
productive use.
Housing first, which I think you're a little familiar with,
taking people with chronic substance abuse conditions and
saying, you know what, we're no long going to wait until you
get sober to offer you housing, that wasn't working. So let's
house you first and then see if we can deal with some of these
other issues.
We've opened successful housing first projects here in
Anchorage, Tanana Chiefs Conference has a very successful
housing first project in Fairbanks and Juneau is about to
follow along. So housing is absolutely incredible and
incredibly important.
And support for recovery. Particularly in rural Alaska,
there's a lot of really good things happening. I know you're
familiar with the Denali Commission and their efforts to put
clinics into many villages across the State. While the Trust
worked with the Denali Commission, and you know, those first
few years, you couldn't even really talk about behavioral
health being part of those clinics, but we kept working with
them and eventually now behavioral health space is a part of
each of those clinic designs and the Mental Health Trust
continues to provide the local cost share match for behavioral
health space, so it's a no cost addition in those rural
community clinics, which is huge.
But space isn't very valuable if you don't have somebody in
those spaces to do the work and that's where the Behavioral
Health Aide Program is absolutely critical to getting help in
these communities for people not only coming out of
Corrections, but people are struggling in the community with
sobriety, with mental health issues and heading off many of
these issues before they end up getting caught up in the
criminal justice system.
And here's a little bit of a rabbit trail, so okay, so we
want to provide these services in villages. We have some
behavioral health aides, but they need support, they need
clinical support. And so what we did is, a few years ago, the
State did a broadband plan and I looked at the State's plan and
it had one or two tribal people on it and surprise, surprise,
the State plan for broadband in rural Alaska was to create a
new broadband system at a cost of millions of dollars to enable
us to use broadband to reach out and deliver services in rural
Alaska. And I sat there and I went, I thought we did this, I
thought we had the AFHCAN project and we had broadband in
clinics and I thought we put broadband in the schools and I
thought we put broadband in the libraries. Why in the heck
would we create another broadband system?
So I started talking to Stuart Ferguson at the ANTHC and
talked to the CIOs of the health corporations and well guess
what? The Federal government, which subsidizes many of those
systems puts a lot of restrictions on what you can use those
systems for. Now that doesn't mean we can't be creative. An
Anchorage agency, Alaska Child and Family wanted to do some
support for children and family in rural Alaska. They went out,
developed relationships in Upper and Lower Kalskag. Well, how
are they going to get access to broadband? Well, what they did
is they worked with the schools and they put these services in
the child's individualized educational program, and once it was
in the IEP, they could get access to broadband in the school.
I tell you, if you want to help us, see if we can't get
some flexibility, especially in frontier and rural areas,
around access to these broadband capacities. We could do a lot
more to support families and communities if we could just use
the tools that we have. And maybe one of the silver linings
about the fiscal problems in the State of Alaska is we can't
afford to build another stupid system that we don't need, so
we're going to have to find a better way to do this and I think
you could help us to accomplish that as well.
Looking at tribal courts, I'll tell you how we look at
tribal courts. We have a lot of experience with therapeutic
courts and it's been a long slog. Mental health courts,
wellness courts and when we first started with those courts, it
was interesting to hear the court systems as a systems response
to it. For a while, they call them the boutique courts and it
was not a term of endearment. They didn't see how spending more
time in hearings, spending more time with these repeat low
level offenders that were there because of mental health and
substance abuse problems could possibly be worth their while
when they need more judges here and more judges there. But you
know, the more results we got, the more they saw how less
frequently people were coming back into the system, and yes,
they might have to spend four, five more hearings for this
particular case, but gee, half the cases weren't coming back.
Now the court system is a big supporter of therapeutic
courts and I'll tell you one of the similarities I see with
tribal courts and I'll just give you an example. I went to a
mental health court hearing and one of the aspects of it is the
judge talks right to the person, not through the lawyers. And
the judge is talking to this woman and talking to her about her
treatment and staying on her meds and she's got a job and she's
doing great in her apartment and they get all done and this
woman's all excited about it. And the judge says, you know,
you've been coming here every month and you're doing so well, I
don't think you need to come back for three months and this
woman's face fell. She was crestfallen and she said well, Your
Honor, are you sure I can't come back again next month? That's
how you turn the justice system around, from being an adversary
of the people to a helper of the people, and to me, that's what
the tribal courts are, they're taking that approach of how do
we help, how do we be partners with these people and help them
get healthy and back into the community.
And so I understand why there's resistance to the tribal
courts. We get into all these jurisdictional issues and tribal
sovereignty and all of that sort of rhetoric. But to me, what
it comes down to is needing people where they are and rallying
their communities around them. And so I think, with some base
funding and framing for us at least, the tribal courts as
therapeutic courts, that they can also expand and take an
extremely valuable role in rural Alaska.
And again, I'm appreciative that Greg mentioned the
medical/legal partnership, that's one of the things the trust
is doing now. We're actually going to fund some of those social
workers and so we're going to collect data and be able to
establish that by meeting the holistic needs of many of these
defendants, that we can keep them out of prison and productive
members in the community. Thank you.
The supplementary information titled 2015 Recidivism
Reduction Plan: Cost-Effective Solutions to Slow Prison
Population Growth and Reduce Recidivism has been
retained in the Committee files and can be found at
http://www.ajc.state.ak.us/acjc/recidivism/HB266-
2015.pdf
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Jeff, greatly appreciate it.
Denise, welcome.
STATEMENT OF DENISE MORRIS, PRESIDENT/CEO, ALASKA NATIVE
JUSTICE CENTER
Ms. Morris. Thank you. I've got some written statements
here that I'm going to try to stay to a little bit so I don't
forget everything that I want to say. So I'm Denise Morris and
I'm Aleut and my mom's family hails from the Pribilof Islands
in St. George and St. Paul. We have a tribal court at home and
my father's family hails from Nebraska.
I appreciate the opportunity to represent, on behalf of my
fellow Alaska Native people, by sharing my thoughts before the
Committee, staff and the public on the important issues of
strengthening Alaska Native families. I hope to share some of
what I know and have learned concerning recidivism, reentry and
tribal courts and also really supporting what truly matters
most, which is our families, our relationships, our culture and
meeting people where they are and truly listening respectfully
to their story.
As I indicated, I currently have the privilege of serving
as the President and CEO of the Alaska Native Justice Center.
I've been at the Alaska Native Justice Center approximately now
17 years. I can't believe when we're sitting here aging
ourselves, it's gone 17 years, and not only that, me and Greg
went to Mountain View Elementary together, we were in the
fourth grade. So as I'm listening to people talk, I'm going we
have a lot of history together.
So at any rate, as it relates to the Alaska Native Justice
Center, the Alaska Native Justice Center was created or
established in 1993 to address the unmet needs of the Alaska
Native community and Alaska's criminal and civil justice
system. And in 1993 when the Alaska Native Justice Center was
formed, Alaska Natives represented between 42 and 47 percent of
the State's incarcerated population, so that was one of the
founding reasons that the Alaska Native Justice Center was
created. When those statistics were actually reported, I mean,
everybody was just astounded that the number of Alaska Natives
that were incarcerated, it was probably one in 25, at that
time, that were incarcerated within the Department of
Corrections.
And the Alaska Native Justice Center truly wanted to be a
solution. What can we do to address this particular issue? And
that basically is where our mission came from is that the
Alaska Native Justice Center promotes justice through
culturally based advocacy prevention and intervention
initiatives to restore dignity, respect and humanity to all
Alaska Natives.
And as I indicated, the statistics then, and unfortunately
now, show a disproportionate representation of Alaska Native
men in our prison population, and unfortunately, Alaska Native
women as victims of violent crime, most particularly domestic
violence and sexual assault and Alaska Native children in out
of home placement with the State of Alaska, Department of
Health and Social Services and that number changes. But right
now, I would say between 40 and 45 percent of the children that
are in the custody of the State of Alaska are Alaska Native
children.
Since 2009, the Alaska Native Justice Center has worked
closely with the Department of Corrections to improve the
quality, access and transitional support services to
individuals pre and post lease--post release. And I do want to
echo what was said about Commissioner Ron Taylor. He has been
very, very supportive, I think that he has the ability and
really wants to change these statistics and is working really
hard. And I do want to add that the Division of Juvenile
Justice has reduced the number of Alaska Natives that are
detained, so there's another model to look at.
However, as I indicated, in 2009, ANJC was actually awarded
a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice
Assistance through the Second Chance Act. We were an advocate
for the passage of the Second Chance Act, which was
specifically funds to support programs for individuals that
were transitioning from incarceration and I think that's the
first federal legislation that actually had funding associated
with it.
In 2010, ANJC's Board of Directors developed a five-year
reentry strategic plan, and as a key component of that, we
established the first Alaska Native Advisory Committee, which
was dedicated to implementing successful reentry services.
Statistically, since 2010 and 2014, ANJC has provided
reentry services to some 2,500 people and there's a lot more
people seeking support, we just can't help everybody and
there's other partners now that are also doing this work. In
2014 alone, we had 1,175 individuals that we helped or assisted
who were transitioning from incarceration, so ANJC's program
participant recidivism rate averaged 19 percent. That's low for
recidivism rate in the State of Alaska, 19 percent.
I believe now, as compared to the State of Alaska,
Department of Corrections, statewide recidivism rate, which is
63 percent, so our programs are culturally based programs, we
work one-on-one with the individuals, we develop individual
intensive case management plans pre-release, when the
individual is post release, we work with them and actually
implementing the case management plan that was designed with
them to meet their specific needs.
We have the support of the Department of Corrections.
Everybody that is participating in our reentry program is
assigned to one probation officer. So if we have a particular
issue that arises, we're able to meet with and talk with that
particular probation officer. Individuals that are in our
programs meet weekly and more often if they need to. And when
we're developing their case management plan, we're looking at
the gamut of everything that we're talking about, housing, you
know, if there's a condition of probation that they need to be
enrolled in an alcohol substance abuse treatment program, how
are we going to do that; if they're currently on meds as a
result of mental health issue, how are we going to continue
that, employment is a biggie.
And I just want to also barrier crimes, I know that the
Commission is looking at barrier crimes, but I can't tell you
the number of doors that are closed as a result of the
restriction of barrier crimes. Housing, employment. Another key
component that we do at the Alaska Native Justice Center in
partnership with a lot of people, we don't do this alone, is
educating the public of the value of giving people a second
chance.
Senator Murkowski. Yes.
Ms. Morris. These individuals have a lot of skills that
they bring to the table, we educate employers about the
opportunities of hiring these individuals, we educate landlord/
tenants about renting to individuals to really try to dispel
the myth associated with being incarcerated.
Some of the other issues that I want to talk about as well
is tribal courts and I can say that the Alaska Native Justice
Center has been an advocate of tribal courts for a long time.
And as Natasha had indicated, there's 229 tribes in Alaska and
a third of them actually have tribal courts, but there's also
elders panels, there's community panels, there's diversion
programs, there's a lot of other ways that we can utilize our
resources to address alternatives to incarceration.
And I also want to talk a little bit about prevention. We
know if an individual graduates from high school, the
likelihood of that individual being incarcerated is reduced by
50 percent. And we know if children have their parents in the
home, and you know, when we're talking about the number of
individuals that are incarcerated in the Alaska Native
community, we have children of Alaska Native heritage that are
being raised by their grandparents or their aunties or their
uncles because sometimes both of their parents are
incarcerated. So I mean, the factor that this has on our
families is tremendous, so I really think that there's a lot of
things that we can do and I have to say that right now, that
even though the numbers of the individuals that are
incarcerated is devastating, I'm encouraged now that because I
think that people are coming together with open minds to truly
look at what it is that we can do to reduce these numbers. And
we don't want to be number one in the nation for the number of
people that we have incarcerated, we do not want to be number
one in the nation for domestic violence and sexual assault and
I know there was a report that was done by the Alaska Judicial
Council and they were talking about recidivism. Other than
being Alaska Native, the only other mitigating factor is being
indigent, so when we're thinking about factors, about how
people end up in the justice system, I think that we need to
look at all of the resources, utilize all of the tools that are
available to us to really address this issue. And I think
addressing it at the local level by utilizing tribal courts,
utilizing elders panels, whatever tools are available to us, I
think really will go a long ways.
And we do know through the Indian Self Determination Act
that culturally relevant programs based on the cultural needs
of the individuals utilizing those programs make a significant
difference. We've done it with the healthcare model, so there's
a tribal set aside so that culturally relevant programs can be
developed. We've done it with NAHASDA, so there's all kinds of
opportunities and there's proven evidence that demonstrates
that culturally relevant programs do make a difference.
So in closing, I would just like to say that I really
appreciate you being here, appreciate your support over the
years. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Adkins follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chet Adkins, Participant of Alaska Native Justice
Center's Reentry Program, Southcentral Foundation's Men's Wellness
Program, and the Southcentral Foundation's Family Wellness Warriors
Initiative
I am 55 year old, Yupik, Aleut, and white. I spent my first five
years in the village of Oscarville with my maternal grandparents. My
first language was Yupik and I identify myself as Yupik because that is
the culture I know and love. At five I moved to Fairbanks with my
parents to go to school.
The education that stuck was the one I got at home; how to be a
criminal. My father was a steel contractor and when I was not in school
I was on job sites with dad. My favorite times were lunch and coffee
breaks, listening to the stories and believing them; which gave me a
very skewed and unrealistic view of relationships and a man's role in
life. I learned that a man's only duty was to provide, not to nurture
and that woman should subservient and take care of her children and her
husband's home. I also learned that a man had to fight when challenged
or when his word was questioned and that he had the right to do as he
pleased when away from his family.
From age 14 to 17 I worked on the pipeline making an iron-worker's
apprentice wage. I worked most of the camps from Sheep Creek to
Franklin Buff. This period validated everything I learned during lunch
and coffee breaks; I received an up close education on how to get
things done. Where the crew went after work, is where I went. This
exposed me to the application of many of the values I had assimilated
on the job. The most damaging subconscious value I developed was how I
categorized women. There were family members and friends who were to be
protected under any circumstance. There were the nice girls who you
could date and marry, and there was the misguided belief that women
could be taken advantage of because of the situations they found
themselves in.
By the time I was 10, I had split myself in 3 completely different
people with different values and behaviors to match my different
environments. When I visited the village I became the Eskimo boy who
reflected the traditional, cultural, and community values I was taught
as a child. In school I was a student and an athlete. When I was at
work, I was a good iron worker and a criminal. These persons coexisted
and allowed me to function until I was 17. At 17 I quit school and my
family moved from Fairbanks back to Bethel. I no longer needed the
student in me, and I no longer had the geographic space that had
protected the Native me from the criminal me. Within a short period my
criminal values won out I became a bootlegger, making me toxic to the
culture I claim to love.
By the time I was 20, everything I did, from commercial fishing to
driving cab to operating a village store, had some element of criminal
activity. When I was 25 my father committed suicide and left an
insolvent estate bleeding money. My solution was to graduate from
selling whisky to selling cocaine. I made my first trip to Florida in
early March of 1986. Things went as planned for about 6 months, then
one day I woke-up, and if I had cocaine, I used, and I always had it.
By December, when I got down to a pound of uncut, I quit selling so I
wouldn't run out. On March 23rd 1987, I committed the murder of a woman
behind cocaine.
When I got to prison, I became a bigger criminal than I ever was on
the street. I created drama and chaos to give my life purpose. It took
me 12 to 14 years of my sentence to begin to take responsibility for
the things I had done in my life. It took me another 8 years or so to
completely accept responsibility for what I had done and realize that
my actions from 30 years ago and longer continue to have consequences
to others. I believe the most significant part of this process was a
spiritual awaking; strengthened and facilitated by the Kairos Prison
Ministry and the Transitional Living Community Program in Arizona. My
spiritual awakening gave me the tools to accept responsibility for what
I had done without condemning myself.
Early in my sentence, with the support of Orutsaramiut Native
Council in Bethel, I began to educate myself. I began primarily because
it mitigated the consequences of my behavior in prison. Within a short
time I began to build a sense of accomplishment from my studies. I now
have over 200 quarter credits and I earned an AA in liberal arts from
Ohio University. At the same time I shifted my focus from the yard to
ivory carving and jewelry making in the hobby shop. The hobby shop
provided me with a way to help support my children and through making
wood toys, a means to begin making amends to the community; the hobby
shop also gave me a cultural connection I hadn't experienced since
childhood.
The last part of my incarceration was spent in Colorado in the
Residential Substance Abuse Treatment program. I completed the program
in September of 2010 and then worked as an office assistant and group
facilitator until September of 2013. I had the privilege of working for
a lady, who through both word and deed showed me that her primary
interest and goal was to help people. She taught me that goal of
treatment was not to stop using; it was to understand how we became who
we are so that we can become who we are meant to be. Losing the desire
to use or act out was an ancillary benefit of that growth process. It
was at this point that I was able to let go of the last of my criminal
values and ties. As stupid as it may seem, I had been subconsciously
hanging on to them as a backup plan. At this point I was comfortable
putting the program before my old values and earnestly began to
confront behaviors and challenge beliefs within the Residential
Substance Abuse Treatment program. As a result I developed a reputation
of rat or snitch and I was ostracized by my old cohorts, both of which
I am OK with if not proud of.
In the last 3 years of my incarceration I experienced pain,
cramping, weakness, and loss of function in my legs. It wasn't until
just before I was released on parole that the Department of Correction
acknowledged that my spinal nerve bundle was compressed to 20 percent
of its normal area, that I had probable motor nerve damage, possible
sensory nerve damage, and impaired function in my legs. At first I was
told that I wouldn't be released until I had back surgery because the
half-way house wouldn't accept me. I was later told that medical had
cleared me to go to the halfway house. I was transferred to the halfway
house on October 10, 2014.
It was clear to me from the beginning that I had been set up to
fail. I couldn't get a job because of the impaired function of my legs
and the liability that the condition created; the halfway house refused
to give me permission to get the surgery because of the medication
given with surgery and wound care required after surgery, my parole
officer refused to press the issue stating he had no control over the
halfway house, and the Department of Corrections refused to give me a
path to resolution. At 3 months into my stay at the halfway house after
I had written a letter to the parole board, I was given a perceived
path to getting my surgery. However, alternate housing was not approved
until I had completed all but 10 days of my 6 month stay at the halfway
house. Up to that point, I had been mentally preparing myself to have
surgery at the Alaska Native Medical Center and then turning myself in
to recover in prison, hoping that my parole would be reinstated when I
had recuperated from surgery.
While in the halfway house I found myself caught between a rock and
a hard place. One consisting of the halfway house, my parole officer,
Job Service, and even Cook Inlet Tribal Council, all of whom told me
what they couldn't do for me or what I couldn't do for myself until I
had my back surgery, while not giving me the option of having the
surgery; and my parole requirement to have employment.
I owe the success I have had and my continued freedom to the Alaska
Native Justice Center, the Southcentral Foundation's Men's Wellness
Program, and the Southcentral Foundation's Family Wellness Warriors
Initiative. By networking at the Alaska Native Justice Center (ANJC)
weekly support meetings I learned about the Men's Wellness Program
Internships. The Men's Wellness Programs was willing to meet me where I
was and help me from there, rather than expect me to change or improve
things outside of my control before helping me. Men's Wellness gave me
a 6 month paid internship and placed me with the Family Wellness
Warriors Initiative. Family Wellness Warriors Initiative gave me a job
with both meaning and purpose. Together these 3 organizations gave the
one thing I had been asking for--a chance to prove myself. Three and a
half months into my 6 month internship I was hired as a permanent full
time employee at Family Wellness Warriors Initiative.
I firmly believe that if these organizations and the people in them
hadn't seen me rather than a convict, if they hadn't given me the
acceptance and support that they have, I would have been just another
failure who went back to prison; not because I did anything wrong, but
because I would have been unable to get and keep a job without them,
which was a requirement of my parole. I know that I owe my current and
future success to the women and men in ANJC, the Southcentral
Foundation's Men's Wellness, and the Southcentral Foundation's Family
Wellness Warriors Initiative (FWWI).
While I know that I don't have all the answers, based on having
spent over 29 years incarcerated, I do have some suggestions. First,
reentry begins in prison. In my experience and observation, most prison
programs are for show, they tend to lack the depth, value, and duration
to develop and maintain real jobs skills, and this must change. As part
of that change, those with experience and skill, who are incarcerated,
must be better utilized to teach and mentor the young and unskilled.
The value of hobby craft programs, which are being eliminated by
the Department of Corrections, cannot be over stated. Hobby craft is a
means to create cultural connectivity for Native prisoners. Hobby craft
is the only activity beside visitation that fosters family ties, family
interaction, and positive communication between prisoners and their
families. Hobby crafters must interact with vendors to purchase
supplies and sell their crafts. Crafters must learn how to prioritize
their needs and activities as well as saving and budgeting to buy their
tools and supplies. Hobby craft provides a unique opportunity for
prisoners to give back to society through community service. Hobby
craft teaches marketable skills, a work ethic and responsibility. Hobby
craft also stimulates change in values. With a 2 to 3 year waiting list
to get into the shops and a significant investment in tools and
materials, participants are rarely involved in physical conflicts or
willing to risk a dirty urinalysis, both of which are grounds for
immediate expulsion from the shops. In short, hobby craft is the most
complete rehabilitative program the Department of Corrections provides,
but fails to recognize it as such.
In my experience faith based programs offer hope through the
promise of forgiveness and salvation; which can be achieved only
through repentance and right living. Faith has given me and many others
the only real hope for the future we have ever known. My observations,
even before my own spiritual awakening, showed me that few who did not
find and build some sort of spiritual foundation, rarely had lasting
success. Therefore, all spiritual journeys, even those different than
our own, must be supported.
The largest problem that I see confronting all released felons, is
that Alaska is number 1 for state-created legislative and regulatory
barriers to successful reentry. There are no less than 533 state
statutes and regulations obstructing reentry in one way or another. I
would make a great substance abuse counselor; but I am barred by state
statue from ever being one. How does that serve the greater good? If
you want to reduce recidivism, you have to give us the same opportunity
to prove ourselves that ANJC, Men's Wellness, and FWWI gave me.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Denise. Thank you to each of
you for, I think, very insightful comments and we've spent a
lot more time hearing from you than what we typically might in
a regular hearing. I felt that what you were providing us was
way too important to cut it off at five minutes, so we won't
have as much time for the back and forth, but I think what you
have put before the Committee through this public record has
been exceptionally important and I thank you for that.
I'm struck that we have a conflict, an approach almost
because of our geography, because of where our people are
situated around an enormous state that is challenged by
distance and cost.
And as we talk about how we deal with the issues of
recidivism, of reentry, of rehabilitation, what I've heard from
all of you, whether it's the state approach or tribal or here
in Anchorage, it's this community based justice, making sure
that you've got programs that are culturally relevant, making
sure that when an individual comes out of that system, that
there's a better alternative than just going back to what got
you into this in the first place.
And as I review the very strong benefits that we see from
the tribal courts structure and out in our villages and the
different approaches to sentencing, to healing, to
rehabilitation, the description that you had, Natasha, about
the circles and the fact that you have an entire community
literally that is weighing in, in discussion, and in a way that
not only helps the victim, helps the perpetrator. But also the
whole community and I'm struck at how that can work, but I also
recognize that when you're coming from Mountain View, when
you're coming from Anchorage, which is our state's largest
population base for our Native peoples, we don't necessarily
think about it that way, but we have more Alaska Natives here,
how can you take that true community based justice system that
would be effective in Stevens Village or effective even out in
Kodiak, which is a bigger city and might work in Old Harbor,
but a little bit more difficult to translate to Kodiak, but you
can make it work because there's a closeness and people know
one another.
But you come to Anchorage and we're a big city here, this
is--there's a level of anonymity, you can get lost in Mountain
View, you can get lost in the system here. How can we do a
better job of this community based justice to provide for the
needs of so many here who are falling through those cracks. And
Denis, you mentioned some of the programs, but it's almost like
it's case by case. Is it translatable what we're doing with our
smaller villages and through our tribal courts, is it
translatable into the urban centers, and if so, how do we do
it? Go ahead, Greg.
Mr. Razo. Sure. I think it's absolutely translatable into
an urban setting and first, I'll talk about the courts that
Jeff talked about, the wellness courts and the drug courts and
supporting that system that has the time and takes the time to
deal with individual needs because it is individual needs, but
we shouldn't mistake the fact that there's more than one tribe
here in Anchorage, Alaska. There are many tribes here in
Anchorage, Alaska.
Senator Murkowski. Well, we have all of them right here,
so----
Mr. Razo. All of them, yes.
Senator Murkowski. Yes.
Mr. Razo. So I think you recognize that you don't have to
be in a village to form a partnership and we know that there's
community coalitions like AFACT, and you know, faith based
coalitions, there's folks that are hungry for partnership and
want to become part of the system that they find themselves
living in. Whether they're from a Polynesian background or a
Laotian background, you begin to reach out, include those sorts
of cultures into a system and then you're able to form justice
systems that are relevant to those people because they must
find themselves in even a more foreign situation than an Alaska
Native does here in Anchorage.
Senator Murkowski. Senator Coghill?
Mr. Coghill. Sure. Thank you, Senator, and I think that's a
good question for the whole population. For example, cultural
issues, we have so much military in Alaska, that's a different
culture than many things we have to deal with. We have the
Polynesian, in Barrow, we have a population of Filipinos, it's
significant and it does need to be culturally relevant.
One of the things that we're encouraging the State to do is
to look at our pretrial population and look at diversion
programs, things that we can do that are relevant to that
situation. So that would be able to get them into treatment
programs if they will agree to it. It's going to have to be
permissive because when you're in pretrial and you don't want
to assume guilt necessarily, but there are things that we're
looking at that can help that circumstance, especially for
people who have been incarcerated before, things that we might
be able to get them into, maybe ankle monitoring with the
requirement of a program, things like that.
I think it's going to be important. It can't be understated
that prevention issue if a big deal. I think it's not just
education though, you have to have everything from working
partnerships, I think some of the things that we do in interns
is significant in high school, but it is true though that the
things that kick the feet up [sic] from under us are drug and
alcohol issues.
Senator Murkowski. Yes.
Mr. Coghill. Those people who are involved in that are
going to be awful hard to get into internship programs. You
have to go looking for them and that is unfortunate, so as soon
as they engage in the system, whether they get charged for an
offense, what we can do on risk assessment issues and needs
assessment issues is going to be very important, so I'd say
that that has become more apparent to us than ever before that,
on the front end, we can do things as well as the recidivism
reentry, there's many things we can do on the front end. And
this justice commission that we're all working on is looking at
some of those things and there are practices that other states
are doing that I think we can benefit from, so I think it will
be cross cultural, but beneficial and it brings kind of a
community approach to it.
Unfortunately, it's not going to be as good as a small
community, but it'll be those affected in that community will
be a part of it.
Senator Murkowski. Other comments to that? Natasha?
Ms. Singh. Thank you, Senator, for that question. Greg
Bringhurst and I are also urban Southside Natives from
Fairbanks, Hunter Hornets. So I think this question is very
interesting. Currently, Alaska Native tribes have sovereign
authority over the domestic relations of their tribal members
and that authority extends outside of the village communities,
extends to the urban centers.
I see the tribal court system can work for urban residents,
urban tribal members. I think it would take some agreements
between tribes--but we could replicate it and I could see
getting the community involved in those circles for the Native
people of Fairbanks and Anchorage. I think we do have that
authority, I think with additional confirmed authority and
funding, it could be replicated definitely.
Senator Murkowski. Let me ask about the preventive piece
because when you talk about justice reinvestment, the best way
to invest is to not have to have this level of system, an
expensive system that sometimes works, but unfortunately, we
see the model repeat itself too often that it's not working and
it's extraordinarily costly.
One of the things that we've been discussing within the
Indian Affairs Committee really the past six months or so has
been the impact of trauma. The impact of historical trauma,
trauma in an individual's life that leads to this lifetime,
quite often, of just a pattern of behavior that is not healthy,
not healthy for the individual, not healthy for the others
around it and very, very destructive.
And I've been working with Senator Heitkamp from North
Dakota, we have co-sponsored this legislation that moved
through the Senate regarding the Native Children's Commission
and a part of what we are looking at is the trauma that comes
to children, whether it is through observing acts of violence
within the home or being the victim of assault or violence or
sexual assault and then the impact then on the individual.
The statistic that we have here in Alaska, 40 to 45 percent
of the children that are in custody in our State's juvenile
system are Alaska Native children, is really a staggering
figure. And so you think about that population and what they
have been exposed to as young children and then how that will
play out as they grow older and the impacts that will be on
them and their health and those around them.
What, if anything, and I'm probably looking to you, Mr.
Jessee, for this one, what are we doing to try to better
understand the impacts of early childhood trauma or it doesn't
have to be early childhood, the impacts of trauma and then what
that leads to as part of the involvement in a system, most
notably the Corrections system, the Juvenile Justice system.
What are we doing to examine this?
Mr. Jessee. Well, the good news is that we do have a lot of
data now through the adverse childhood experience research
that's been done. We know exactly what you're saying, the
higher the incidents of adverse childhood experiences, the
worse outcomes that we have. And not just the ones you normally
expect, which is criminal behavior or addiction, those sorts of
things, but increased heart disease, increased hypertension,
increased depression. So we now know that there's that link, so
what are we doing, what can we do to change that trajectory?
Well, a lot of it's going towards a trauma informed system of
care at every single level.
A good example is the Anchorage School District still
expels and suspends kids over and over and over for behavior
that can be traced back to trauma experiences. Now in other
places like Washington, for example, in Walla Walla, an
alternative high school sort of got the message and went well,
wait a minute, if this ASIS (ph) stuff is true, then when a kid
acts out and all we do is suspend them or expel them, we're
just re-traumatizing them, we're just adding another ace onto
the list.
And so they've gone to a trauma informed system in this
alternative high school where when Greg comes in in the morning
and sits down and his teacher says open your book and Greg says
hey, F you, well, we're not going to suspend him, what we're
going to do is sit down and say Greg, what's going on, you
know, you sure came in this morning with an attitude, is there
something going on? And what they found out is kids would say
well, yeah, my mom got drunk last night and beat the crap out
of my brother. And so they start to work with these kids. That
school went from graduating six to seven kids a year to
graduating 50 kids a year just by changing the approach that
they used.
Even in Division of Juvenile Justice in Anchorage at
McLaughlin Youth Center, which I know you're familiar with,
they went to trauma informed care on their detention and
security units and even long-time juvenile officers, the most
jaded if you will, having spent years with these kids that were
very negative about oh, we're just going to cottle these kids,
you know, what they need is a firm hand. After watching their
incidents of restraint and seclusion and physical violence go
through the floor, even they, when you take a tour there, will
tell you boy, this works.
So we're learning, we're learning that we need to approach
these kids and it's not just kids. Adults are just kids with
trauma that grew up and got older, and you know, they're still
going through all of those post-traumatic stress systems, so if
we start treating people like they're victims of violence and
victims of trauma and using trauma informed strategies, we can
turn the curve, we can make a difference. And the tribal courts
are doing it, therapeutic courts are doing it, the Juvenile
Justice System's doing it, we can turn the curve.
Senator Murkowski. Okay, that's encouraging. Let me ask
about some of the reentry programs. I've had an opportunity to
see some of what we're doing here and see some of the
successes. Are we--recognizing that you've got, again, the
geographic diversity, you have some places that have more
programs that are more adept, more capable, perhaps a little
bit more mature in terms of what they have been able to do, are
we seeing some examples outside of the Anchorage area, say for
instance, in Fairbanks, Barrow, Kotz, Nome, are bigger
communities maybe down in Southeast where we're seeing some
real successes with making a difference with the reentry, the
support that is there. You mentioned--and I appreciate the very
specific areas that you've given us from the federal
perspective that we can look to. Let's help with housing, let's
help with some of the--there's support for recovery programs,
let's help with the tribal courts. But are we seeing some areas
that are just doing much, much better than others and so we've
got some models that we should be looking to as we're trying to
build this out?
Ms. Morris. I'll speak to that----
Senator Murkowski. Yes.
Ms. Morris.--I do know that Bristol Bay also has a reentry
program they're developing and I also want to add that, when
we're talking about reentry services where we're talking about
tribal courts and we're talking about elders panels and we're
talking about community diversion programs. In small, rural
communities, they are the ones that have and are acting as the
reentry programs, they're the ones that are the parties
providing the supportive services to the individuals when
they're returning to the communities.
And I would give an example with our reentry program, a lot
of times when the individual is able to go back to their home
community or their home village, we, a lot of times, work with
either the healthcare organization, the tribal court, the
tribal council to make sure that there are those support
services.
Senator Murkowski. So you will contact them?
Ms. Morris. Yes, we'll reach out to, yes. We'll reach out
to the individuals in the community to make sure that there is
a support system and an individual, as part of that, has to be
able to reenter their community in a good way. You know, how
are they going to go before their tribal court or their tribal
elders and apologize for their deeds, hold themselves
accountable and ask for permission to be a member of that
community. That's very important within our culture that that
takes place, so I would say that they do act as in support
those reentry services.
Senator Murkowski. So then as part of, again, community
based justice, in order to successfully reenter, so you've got
to have a place to live, you have to have some value there and
that typically comes through a job, but now you've come back
and you got a felony record and nobody wants to hire you and
the comment was made, but you know, you can't get your driver's
license, if you will, you've got all of these limitations. What
are we doing to bring the community in to say it is okay to
rent a home to this individual, it is okay to take a chance,
give this individual a second chance by hiring him and at a
time when, you know, I don't want to take the risk. This guy
has a record, I don't want to do that. What are we doing to
bring the community in to allow for this second chance? Because
you may have an individual that's got really great intentions
and he's going to turn his life around and he gets into a place
where everyone is afraid. I'm afraid to have you as a tenant,
I'm afraid to have you as an employee, I'm afraid to have you
as a neighbor because now you're on the sexual offender
registry. How do we do that part of our community based
restorative justice, are we working on that?
Ms. Morris. I would like to respond to that and say one of
the models that we're looking at and have been utilizing is
reentry coalition, so we have a statewide reentry coalition, we
have an Anchorage reentry, Fairbanks, Mat-Su, Juneau. I'm not
going to list them all, but there is reentry coalitions that
are pretty active across the State of Alaska and those members
that serve on those reentry coalitions are doing just exactly
what you're talking about.
In addition, at the State level, we do partner with the
Department of Labor, Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, Alaska
Mental Health Trust, et cetera, et cetera, in trying to make
sure that they're aware of the barriers and to partner with
them in creating opportunities.
And then the other thing is walking the walk and I would
say, by way of example, at the Alaska Native Justice Center, we
have two individual employees that graduated from a reentry
program and now lead and manage our reentry program, so there's
that peer to peer continuity and support there.
Senator Murkowski. Good. Mr. Jessee?
Mr. Jessee. Well, there's also Cook Inlet Tribal Council,
has the ChanLyut program----
Senator Murkowski. Right.
Mr. Jessee.--which works with local businessmen. We've, in
our Bridge Home Program, we've looked at indemnifying landlords
so that, if they bring somebody into one of their apartments
and there's damages, we say hey, we'll cover the damages so you
don't have to take that risk.
There's a movement in the Commission around Ban the Box----
Senator Murkowski. Yes.
Mr. Jessee.--so that when you first make your application
for employment, the first thing they see is a box that says
yes, I'm a felon. Well, let's get you a little farther into the
process, so they get to talk to you, know you a little bit.
Yes, at some point, you're probably going to have to own up to
what you've done, but at least you've got your foot in the door
and they've got some relationship with you and now maybe
they'll take a chance on you instead of just washing you out at
the front end.
So there are things that are happening that they need to be
institutionalized and become more prevalent and well and widely
distributed.
Senator Murkowski. I was on an airplane yesterday and a
gentleman came up and introduced himself to me and he says I'm
so excited, I'm going down, I'm opening up a restaurant, it's
part of a franchise and I said well, congratulations. He says
yes, I'm the first person to be able to buy into this franchise
in decades and he says I started literally washing dishes and
that's the American Dream, and he said--he says yeah, I am also
a convicted felon, had a drug offense some years back and he
got a job washing dishes. And he worked his way up through the
company and it was just one of those really strong reminders
that there are these very good success stories out there. We
wish that there could be more of them because I looked at that
guy thinking to myself, he's going to be a leader in the
community because he's been given that opportunity. You wanted
to weigh in, John?
Mr. Coghill. One of the reasons why Commissioner Taylor
gets so many good remarks is because he's begun working with
people weeks, months before they get out and had brought to us
in the--I think the Commission's going to deal with it, but as
something that I put into the Senate Bill 91, which was with
job training, which the Department of Labor's working with us--
--
Senator Murkowski. Yes.
Mr. Coghill.--schooling, things like that. You can actually
earn good time to show initiative that is preparatory for you
getting out, looking at housing, looking at opportunities.
The other thing that we have to look at though is the
driver's license, the ability to get a limited driver's license
is going to be a big deal in Alaska. Anywhere where there's a
road system, the ability in Fairbanks, you can take a bus, but
you're talking about a 16-hour day minimum, right?
Senator Murkowski. Yes.
Mr. Coghill. It's just slow and it's tedious. So ways we
can do that under degrees of accountability is going to be
important. And then the barrier crimes, we will be looking at
in very earnest in ways that people can be given some relief
from that and some of the ways that we can get the community to
help us understand what their barrier is, if for some reason,
they can get a sanction that covers that barrier, how would
they see that? The vulnerable--those areas are probably the
trickiest, but there's so many areas. I think we found over 400
areas where we have barriers to entry of work that are just
probably not appropriate and they were all done for probably
some good reason, but they just stacked up in ways that now
we've made it very difficult for people to work, so those are
some of the things we'll be looking at, trying to bust through
some of these real roadblocks to let people be productive.
Probably the other thing is restoration of families is a
big deal, whether it's a Native or non-Native families, ways
that we can get them into some focus group, family counseling,
some restorative methods there because they're going to be
related and they're going to be interacting and I think those
are ways that we have to help them.
And so I think there are some people that are stepping
forward on that, we'll look forward to see if we can
institutionalize that somehow.
Senator Murkowski. Well, I'm really glad that you brought
up that piece of it because, again, you know, the hearing today
is strengthening our Alaska Native families, but you made the
comment earlier, when we were talking about culturally
appropriate and recognizing that we've got a military
population that has its own culture. One of the things that I
have had an opportunity to look at are some of the programs
that are out there for our military families when the spouse
has been deployed for a year and everybody thinks okay, we're
happy he or she is home and comes back in and families are--can
be in a very rocky situation for a period of time because of
the stress and everyone just thinks that well, now you're all
home and you're unified, the world is good. And the same is
true, you're home from prison, we're all together now, we're
all one big happy family, not so much, so what level of support
is there for the families, I think, is hugely important and I
know that that's an area that we don't think about that part of
them. Natasha?
Ms. Singh. For many of our rural communities, the Alaska
Native Health Consortiums are the biggest employers, yet we are
subject to the Indian Child Protection Act, which includes a
list of other barriers and we have seen--we haven't been able
to, let's say, hire a construction worker out in one of our
communities because of a barrier crime. The person might be
sober, is likely building a house, isn't willing to be in
control over Indian children or vulnerable adults, but because
of the implementing regulations and the statute itself, it
creates issues for us. I really look forward to Senator
Coghill's work at looking at those State barrier crimes
because, as you know, the Alaska Native Health Consortiums are
subject to the State barrier crimes as well for employment
because we accept Medicaid reimbursement.
And as the largest employers in rural Alaska, we understand
those barrier laws are intended to keep the creeps out and we
want to keep the creeps out, but we want to employ those who
have been restored.
Senator Murkowski. Yes. Thank you. We have gone over the
allotted time, but again, very, very interesting and
constructive discussion. What you have provided for the
Committee, I think, is very, very helpful.
I think it's also important and instructive that we're
talking about the different partnerships and the different ways
to collaborate because Senator Coghill and I don't need to let
you know that, from the State's perspective, budget dollars are
skinny and they're going to get skinnier and it's hard at the
Federal level too.
Where I think we're making a little bit of incremental
progress, I do think that the funding, the $10 million, it's
not a lot, but it's a start and encouraging funding to help our
tribal courts with our PL280 states, that's going to help
Alaska, it will help other states, but I kind of view it as
getting our foot in the door to provide for that level of
support and training.
And again, Natasha, what you have been doing at TCC and so
many of those providing this technical support is so huge, but
we have funding challenges that face us and so how we make wise
use of the available dollars that are out there is going to be
key and it's going to require a level of, again, coordination
and a partnership using best practices, really trying to find
those economies that will benefit the individuals that have
been through the system, the individuals that we want to keep
through the system, but ultimately, trying to ensure that
Alaska's families and Alaska's Native families particularly are
strong and healthy.
So thank you for what you have contributed to the
conversation today. Again, I'll remind you that we will keep
the Committee record open for probably a couple weeks now, and
if you would like to supplement your comments, more than happy
to receive that. And to those of you who have joined us for the
hearing, know that you too are welcome to weigh in.
And with that, again, we thank the staffs that have been
working on these issues and that we know will work forward
beyond just this hearing. Thank you and the Committee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Prepared Statement of the U.S. Department of Justice
Chairman Barrasso, Vice-Chairman Tester and distinguished Members
of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit a statement
for the record on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice regarding
``Strengthening Alaska Native Families: Examining Recidivism, Reentry,
and Tribal Courts in Alaska.''
The Department of Justice (``the Department'') is committed to
working with our state, local, and tribal partners to remove barriers
to successful reentry and reduce the collateral consequences of
incarceration. In 2011, the Attorney General established an interagency
council to coordinate reentry efforts across the executive branch. The
Attorney General continues to chair the Reentry Council, which involves
cabinet-level leaders and heads of more than 20 federal agencies.
The Council was formed to remove federal obstacles to reentry and
promote approaches designed to improve reintegration. The mission of
the Council is threefold: make communities safer by reducing recidivism
and victimization, assist those who return from prison and jail in
becoming productive citizens, and save taxpayer dollars by lowering the
direct and collateral costs of incarceration. Due to the broad
authorities of Council members, the group is able to take on the full
range of reentry challenges, from employment and healthcare to
substance abuse treatment, education, and housing.
The Department views reentry as a public safety issue. Accordingly,
the Department has also prioritized this issue as part of a Department-
wide initiative, launched in 2009, to enhance public safety in Indian
Country. The Department's reentry efforts support work at the State and
tribal level to provide better services and opportunities to Alaska
Natives returning to their Villages post-detention.
Under the Department's Office of Justice Programs (OJP) Second
Chance Act grant programs, there have also been investments in state
and local reentry programs. Since 2009, OJP's Bureau of Justice
Assistance (BJA) and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) have made nearly 700 awards under the Second Chance
Act, totaling more than $350 million. These resources are being used to
address a wide range of reentry-related issues, including substance
abuse treatment, job training, obtaining driver's licenses, modifying
child support orders, and expunging criminal and juvenile records.
Tribes can use both Second Chance Act funds and funding available under
the Department's Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation (CTAS) to
establish or enhance reentry programming.
The Department's Office of Justice Programs also provides reentry
training and technical assistance. With OJP funding, the American
Probation and Parole Association (APPA) delivered on-site assistance to
the Bristol Bay Native Association's Prisoner Reentry Coalition. The
APPA provided information on effective reentry strategies and worked
with the Coalition on modifying those strategies to best fit the Alaska
Native population. In addition, the APPA delivered motivational
interviewing training to Village Public Safety Officers.
This year the APPA hosted a webinar, also through OJP funding, on
``Reentry in Alaska: A Grassroots Approach to Reducing Recidivism
through Community-Based, Collaborative Reentry Programs.'' The webinar
educated Alaska Native tribes and other participants about the reentry
process and key components to successful reentry programing, including:
The creation, organization and sustainability of a
grassroots, community-based re-entry program that serves native
and non-native reentrants;
The importance of collaboration among the courts, the
Department of Corrections, state agencies, non-profits, and
community organizations with community-based re-entry programs;
The unique challenges a community-based reentry program
faces when serving Native Alaskans, especially those who must
live in an urban setting for post-release treatment; and
How to measure success.
Another OJP grantee, the Council of State Governments, provides
online resources (http://csgjusticecenter.org/reentry/issue-areas/
tribal-affairs) and other resources to tribal communities on reentry
issues.
The Department understands that, in order to achieve positive
outcomes for tribal youth and adults who come into contact with the
justice system, there must be strong tribal justice systems, which
often means a good tribal court system. Funding for tribal courts has
always been an important part of the Department's Consolidated Tribal
Assistance Solicitation, and we have supported a number of tribal court
projects for Alaska Natives.
For example, the Tanana Chiefs Conference is using CTAS funds to
support the development of new tribal codes, enhance communication
among tribal courts in their region, and implement Circle peacemaking
and tribal-state court sentencing collaboration. The Kenaitze Indian
Tribe is using CTAS funds to build the capacity of their Court
Appointed Special Advocate program and enable native foster homes to
serve families referred by tribal and State Courts. OJP has also
provided technical assistance to help the tribe and the City of Kenai
set up a joint jurisdiction court to address non-violent substance
abusing adult offenders in the Kenai area. Through OJP's Tribal Civil
and Criminal Legal Assistance Program, the Alaska Legal Services
Corporation, partnering with the Association of Village Presidents,
assists tribes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta through a tribal court
support group with code development or enhancements, training on
various topic areas and tribal court capacity development.
Currently, OJP is also working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to
update the Model Indian Juvenile Code, which assists federally
recognized tribes in creating individual codes focused on juvenile
matters. The Code specifically addresses issues affecting tribal youth
arrested for alcohol and/or drug-related offenses in Indian Country. It
will also provide guidance for tribes interested in developing
specialized court dockets such as juvenile wellness courts, peacemaking
courts, and teen courts. The model Code and related guidance will be
available to any interested tribe or Alaska Native Village.
Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss some of the efforts
of the Department of Justice to address these important public safety
issues. We will continue to look for ways to provide meaningful support
to Alaska Natives and Alaska Native Villages and to collaborate on
these issues with the State.
______
Prepared Statement of the Association of Village Council Presidents
Thank you Honorable Senator and Chair, Lisa Murkowski, and
distinguished members of the Unites States Senate Commission on Indian
Affairs for the opportunity to present this testimony on behalf of the
56 tribes and villages served by the Association for Village Council
Presidents in Bethel, Alaska.
Tribal Court development for Alaska Native Tribes is necessary now
more than ever. Alaska Natives are more likely to have high recidivism
and reentry rates than any other race because the data shows us this.
According to the Alaska Judicial Council, Alaska Natives make up about
37 percent of felony offenders in comparison to making up 14.7 percent
of the entire Alaskan population and 1.2 percent of the U.S.
population. More alarming is the fact that Alaska Natives represent 48
percent of reoffenders within two years of their first offense and 37
percent of those convictions are upheld. Alaska Native males are the
highest in the state to reoffend and to be reconvicted.
Tribal Courts in Alaska make up very small numbers in comparison to
the 229 tribes. The Yukon-Kuskokvvim Delta Region tribes has 56 tribes
and villages in its region and, according to a recent survey of those
tribes, only 8 tribes responded that they have tribal courts. Data
involving tribal courts is difficult to obtain because most tribal
courts are developed with one-time grant funding and many judges serve
as volunteers in some villages. For some tribes, the Tribal Council
serves as the tribal court in matters concerning child custody and
protective orders in order to retain their judicial authority in ICWA
and VAWA cases. Once the funding for tribal courts is gone, however, it
appears that the tribal court becomes defunct due to sporadic funding.
While alcohol and substance abuse remain overbearing issues in our
communities, we realize that we have the tools to combat these social
ills that often lead to instances of criminal activity and neglect or
abuse of children. The trickle-down effect costs the Federal Government
dollars through COPs grants that are awarded to states and tribes as
well as emptying the state funding sources. The average cost of flying
an alleged perpetrator into Bethel Alaska from any village in its area
is $400.00. This is on top of paying for the Alaska State Trooper's
time to escort the individual to Bethel, house the alleged perpetrator,
use of state or municipal judge's time, court staff time, as well as
the cost of returning the person back to the village is insurmountable.
Eradication of alcohol abuse is another issue that we have
researched at AVCP and have found that, without use of the culture and
the help of the villages themselves, it is nearly impossible to address
the real issues for self-medication by use of alcohol or other
substance abuse. AVCP's Healthy Families initiative has created a
treatment program incorporating healing methods for various social
issues. Alcohol abuse and suicide rates are deeply rooted to the
cultural and historical trauma experienced by today's Yup'ik people.
This is why circle sentencing, restorative justice or peacemaking
circles are a solution to this issue. Somehow tribes in Alaska need to
be empowered to use their own resources, which are the people, the
culture, the way of life, to address the abuse of substances and,
without funding for those court related programs, it is going to
continue to be an issue that is dealt with inappropriately by state
agencies. Criminal misdemeanors that take place within Alaska Native
Villages are local issues that need to be treated on a local level by
people, families and community resources.
How do we empower tribes, given the bureaucratic procedures of
intertwining the Office of Self-Governance, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, Department of Interior, Department of Justice and other
federal and state agencies to begin funding tribal courts in Alaska?
The Indian Law and Order Commission (ILOC) has an answer to the
dilemma. The Roadmap for Alaska includes these suggestions from ILOC:
1. Amending ANCSA to Overturn Alaska v. Native Village of
Venetie Tribal Government, 522 U.S. 520 (1998), whereby the
Supreme Court decided that the Native Village of Venetie was
unable to collect taxes because the tribe was unable to own its
own land.
2. Clarifying that Native Allotments and Townsites in Alaska
are Indian Country, which is a long-standing argument and
basically would fix the ANCSA problems that occurred after
Alaska was purchased.
3. Allow ANCSA Corporation Lands to be Transferred to Tribal
Government and put into Trust.
4. Revising VAWA to Eliminate the Alaska Exclusion, which was
done in December 2014.
5. Congressional Affirmation of Inherent Criminal Jurisdiction
of Alaska Tribes.
Reaffirmation of the sovereignty of Alaska Native tribes is a huge
issue for the advancement and empowerment of these tribes. Even though
remote villages range in size from small numbers to large populations,
the right to be self-governed is a right shared by all Native
Americans. This right has unraveled throughout legislative and
historically intrusive law throughout the history of Alaska and its
Native tribes. Alaska Native tribes have the right to be self-governed.
The only way that the 56 tribes and villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim
Delta Region are able to continue is through their strength in their
culture, the subsistence traditions and the will of the people. Little
has been done throughout history to preserve the strong culture of
Alaska Native people on the part of the state and Federal Governments.
Now is the time to make changes that empower the tribes of Alaska
Natives. Now is the time to make history right. AVCP is in support of
enacting all five of the Indian Law and Order Act Commission's
recommendations to move toward self-sufficiency for Alaska Native
tribes.
Lastly, to ignore the needs of Alaska Native tribes is to ignore
our own citizens who are also constitutionally and congressionally
protected people. The continued support of the U.S. Commission on
Indian Affairs of allowing Alaska Native tribes to fully exercise their
sovereign immunity, jurisdictional empowerment, and assisting these
tribes in creating tribal restorative justice programs to address
recidivism, reentry and especially tribal courts is a step in that very
direction. We realize that we often compete with other Public Law 83-
280 states for funding, but Alaska, now more than ever, needs to be
recognized as a state of emergency when it comes to judicial equality.
We have no market for Indian gaming in Alaska, as is the case for other
tribes and many of our remote villages has little to no businesses to
leverage economic opportunities. For the tribes of Alaska to develop
tribal courts where there are none and to enhance those court systems
in existence, we urge Congress to look to allocate funding for the
Alaska Native Tribes in order to create more opportunities to exercise
sovereign immunity for tribal courts and supportive programs that will
address recidivism and reentry.
Again, AVCP thanks Senator Murkowski for supporting H.B. 2822 and
we urge this commission to recommend that the Alaska Native Tribes
receive a majority of the proposed funding through that bill. In the
most conservative and centralized way of developing tribal courts in
Alaska, AVCP estimates that $7 million would create up to 30 tribal
courts for our 56 tribes and villages. Without this option, we are
concerned that state legislation will continue to set aside tribes as
viable options for solving the disparate numbers of Alaska Natives
entering the state court system and infringing upon the rights of
Alaska Native tribes to be self-governed.
Thank you, Quyana, Honorable U.S. Senate Commission on Indian
Affairs members for taking the time to visit with the stakeholders of
the Alaska Native Tribes and Villages and to hear our testimony on this
very important issue. \1\
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\1\ Written and prepared by Monique Vondall-Rieke, J.D., Director
of Tribal Justice Center and Liz Pederson, General Counsel for the
Association of Village Council Presidents. AVCP, P.O. Box 219, Bethel,
AK.
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______
Prepared Statement of Audrey M.L. Hudson, Mayor/City Manager,
Metlakatla Indian Community
Chairman Barrasso, Vice-Chairman Tester, and distinguished Members
of the Committee, including our friend from Alaska, Senator Murkowski,
I submit this written testimony to supplement the testimony you
received in person during your August 20, 20 1 5 field hearing in
Alaska, which I was not able to attend.
First, we thank you for holding this important field hearing
focused on strengthening Alaska Native families through tribal court
systems. The central unit, and foundation of all communities, whether
Alaska Native or not, is the family. Without strong and healthy
families, no community can develop in a way that improves social,
economic, and environmental conditions simultaneously. Resilient
families create resilient communities.
We also thank you and want you to know of our support for the
following pending legislation:
Thank you to Senator Murkowski for her hard work and
leadership in including $10 million in the Senate version of
the FY 2016 Interior Appropriations bill for training and
technical assistance for tribal courts (including those in
Public Law 280 states). We sincerely hope that the final FY
2016 appropriations legislation includes this increase. We
support your Committee's efforts to work with the House and
Administration to get that done.
We thank you, Senators Barrasso and Tester, for your work in
developing S. 1704 last month, which would allow tribes to
finally directly access the Crime Victims Fund, which would, if
enacted, be an important source of financial support for
families and children exposed to violence and crime.
Our statement also urges the Committee to play a lead role in the
following efforts that we believe will contribute significantly to
Alaska Native systems of justice and thereby strengthen Alaska Native
families:
Recurring and base funding for tribal law enforcement,
public safety and tribal court systems;
Improved coordination between the Departments of Interior
and Justice for necessary training and funding of tribal
justice systems;
Provide funding for the recently announced Departments of
Justice and Interior plans to increase tribal access to federal
criminal databases.
Increased funding for the broad array of services and
training needs that impact foster youth who come through our
court systems, including therapeutic foster homes, training for
magistrates, and the Court Appointed Special Advocates program.
We would like to pilot an Alaska-specific CASA program.
The Metlakatla Indian Community (Tribe) is a strong and resilient
community, notwithstanding our difficult history overcoming adversity
and multiple challenges, even to this day. I am Audrey Hudson, Mayor of
the Metlakatla Indian Community located on the Annette Island Reserve
in far southeast Alaska. I have been Mayor since 20 1 3 and am the
first woman elected to this position. I am proud to serve in that
capacity, and as Mayor, I oversee the affairs, programs, services, and
staff of a wide range of tribal governmental, natural resource, health,
and tribal justice professionals.
The Tribe is located on the Annette Island Reserve in southeast
Alaska, a land base of 87,000 acres, plus adjacent marine waters. The
Tribe has the only reservation in Alaska as we opted out of the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), thus preserving our trust land
and waters.
Our written testimony comes from the experience of having tribal
trust lands in Alaska, tribal jurisdiction over those trust lands, and
our long history of implementing tribal justice systems over those
lands, our membership, and the people who live on the Island. What is
unfortunate, and all too common, in the conversation about tribal
justice systems in Alaska, is the framework that non-Alaska Natives use
when discussing the situation, in which they decry the absence of
tribal justice systems.
It is important, at the outset of these comments, to make clear:
Alaska Natives across the entire State have implemented local, tribal
specific justices systems since time immemorial. Notwithstanding
settlement, Public Law 280, Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
(ANCSA), and the lack of federal funding for tribal justice systems,
Alaska Native cultures are intact, and have a continuous connection to
customs, traditions, and tribal- and village-specific justice systems
that have worked in the past, and continue to work. Metlakatla is one
of these cultures, and I want to acknowledge all of the other cultures
in our State and region who are administering traditions, customs, and
other forms of justice systems.
Metlakatla is, admittedly, a unique example. With our reservation,
we have governed through the development and implementation of a wide
range of civil and criminal codes. As our reservation extends into the
marine water 3,000 feet from our shorelines, we regulate our natural
resources from everything to land use and fisheries. We have developed,
and adapt and revise as needed: juvenile justice systems, domestic
violence prevention programs, Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) programs,
and family law codes that reflect our tribal history and customs. We
have long experience in protecting our families, and we are prepared to
meet the new challenges and opportunities ahead, such as those afforded
by the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) 2013.
However, our successes at Metlakatla are more attributable to our
internal tribal stability and the visionary nature of our tribal
leaders, past and present, than those successes are attributable to the
support of the Federal Government. If the purpose of the field hearing
is to take in information from Alaska tribes on how to support local,
tribal efforts to further develop tribal courts and justice systems,
then our experience is important for the Committee members to
appreciate.
Funding: The federal approach to tribal justice systems and courts
is a system that lacks accountability, steady funding, and inter-
departmental cooperation. Given the size of our reservation and the
complex issues we regulate, the public safety, justice, and courts, the
funding we receive through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) self-
governance is dangerously low. Last year, we reprogrammed $150,000 from
other self-governance funds into our tribal courts systems to
supplement the mere $20,000 we received in that line item. On that
$170,000 of BIA self-governance funds ($150,000 of which is
reprogrammed from other needs) we maintain the court administration,
three magistrates, and two appeals court judges. I challenge the
Committee members to find even one local government, be it municipal,
regional, or county, that maintains a trial court, appeals court,
judges, administration, and court-related staff on such a shoe-string
budget.
The Tribe regulates and provides public safety and community
justice programs over its 87,000 acres, plus marine waters, for under
$800,000 total in BIA self-governance funding, inclusive of courts.
Again, I challenge this Committee to find another government with that
land base and jurisdictional reach to provide public safety and courts
for that amount of funding. That government does not exist in the
United States, other than at Metlakatla.
The BIA is not in the business of running tribal courts and does
its best to advocate on behalf of tribal justice systems, but the BIA
has never been able to move tribal court systems and needs to anywhere
but the bottom of the funding ladder. At the same time, the Department
of Justice (DOJ) has taken on some increasing role in coordinating and
supporting tribal justice systems and courts, but there is no base
funding for tribes within DOJ. In 2010, the DOJ developed the
Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation following input from tribes
with the goal of streamlining how tribes and Alaska Native communities
apply for funding opportunities such as: the Community Oriented
Policing Services; the Office of Justice Programs; and, the Office on
Violence Against Women. However, funding is highly competitive and
resources to develop proposals necessary to compete for those funds are
scarce.
BIA and DOJ programs come and go, and competitive grant and funding
programs are not a match for already over-burdened tribal planners and
grant writers. Even the recent joint effort of DOJ and DOI to provide
tribal access to federal criminal databases--which is an important
opportunity and positive collaboration--came with the proviso by the
DOJ that Congressional appropriations will be necessary in order for
tribes to make full use of the opportunity. Until DOI and DOJ funding
is fully coordinated, provides stable recurring base funding, and until
both Departments fully understand the challenges facing tribal courts
and justice systems, the Federal Government will continue to lack
accountability for Alaska Native families. These families pay the price
for the lack of tribal justice systems. The State of Alaska has one
Alaska State Trooper for approximately every 1 million acres, so
again--no accountability, no funding, and no service delivery for
Alaska Native families.
The Committee needs to understand that, even with our trust land at
Metlakatla, there is no tax base to pay for law enforcement, public
safety, and tribal court systems. Economic development opportunities
and capital investment in the reservation economy already substantially
lags the surrounding region. The Committee should understand that there
is no silver bullet or immediate way for Alaska's tribes to create a
tax base to meet program and service needs, including the social and
justice programs necessary for safe families. The Committee must
explore how to create a recurring federal funding base for tribal
courts and justice systems, and not just by creating a budget category
in the DOI Green Book and then underfunding that program or that
Department. Funding is needed across all Departments, but particularly
with coordination between DOI and DOJ for juvenile justice systems,
funding to meet the historic gap in domestic violence intervention
strategies, funding for tribal code development and tribal court
trainings, such as the addition that Senator Murkowski has included in
the Senate 2016 Interior Appropriations bill. That is a starting place.
This Committee has the capacity to create opportunities for the
interDepartmental cooperation and coordination that is necessary, and
again, do so with an eye towards a recurring funding base that tribes
can count on to staff up tribal courts and justice systems.
Family and Juvenile Justice Issues: With respect to Metlakatla
families and jurisdiction, we see the gaps that exist for the children
who come through our court system. The confusion over State and tribal
jurisdiction too often creates gaps in funding for foster care,
particularly children in need of therapeutic foster care. The question
arises as to who will seek and administer those funds, and funding for
that type of care is already too low. We need funding to train and
support additional therapeutic foster families so that when children
come through our courts in need of help, our magistrates know that
support and help is there. More funding is needed for wrap-around care
for vulnerable and special needs foster children, who are the most
likely to come through our court system. Our magistrates need training
on what services are available as well, since the landscape is
constantly changing.
We see the benefit of the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA)
program with special advocates for our children, but again, funding is
lacking to roll that program out in the Metlakatla Tribal Court at the
level needed to meet needs. We encourage the Committee to examine ways
to fund CASA programs, and Metlakatla offers its assistance in
participating in a Pilot Program to create a model for tribe-specific
CASA advocates in Alaska, should Congress support such an effort.
We encourage the Committee to come, with all members present, back
to Alaska and visit Metlakatla. We have built systems and tribal
programs that can provide examples for the rest of Alaska. At the same
time, when you visit you will see the challenges we face, with
uncertain funding, little federal coordination, and substantial unmet
needs in the face of families struggling in a weak local and tribal
economy.
We appreciate the opportunity to provide this written testimony,
and encourage you to think of yourself as a part of the larger family,
the extended family, of Alaska Natives. Like all families, in times of
need, the rest of the family is there for support. We need your
support, now more than ever.
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