Just a month after visiting Alaska to learn about rural justice needs, U.S. Attorney General William. P. Barr declared the situation a public safety emergency and said the Justice Department would provide upwards of $10 million to remedy the situation.
Recognizing that Alaska has the highest per capita crime rate in the country and the unique circumstances of Alaska’s geographical and jurisdictional landscape, Barr said, he had authorized millions of dollars in emergency funds from various justice department programs, plus announced a Rural Alaska Violent Crime Reduction Working Group, to be led by U.S. Attorney for Alaska Bryan Schroder, who attended a roundtable discussion with Barr and Alaska Native leaders at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium office in Anchorage on May 29.
Leonard Wallner, who oversees the Village Public Safety Officers program for Chugachmiut, the Anchorage based entity that provides a broad spectrum of services for Alaska Natives living in the Chugach region, participated in that roundtable discussion on behalf of Chugachmiut.
It’s still too soon to tell what benefits all those millions of dollars would bring to the Chugach region, Wallner said in an interview on July 2. It remains to be seen specifically where that money is going to and how it will be distributed, he said.
“I haven’t seen anything other than the announcement,” he said. “I’m skeptical on how it’s going to shake out.”
Wallner oversees the Village Public Safety Officer programs for Tatitlek, Chenega, Nanwalek and Port Graham.
“We are allotted one VPSO per village,” he said. “Our region is fairly small. We could have four and we have two at present.”
One thing Wallner said he would be looking at is funding for infrastructure, including dedicated housing for VPSOs.
“Housing is problematic in Nanwalek and Port Graham,” he said.
Under the plan announced by Barr on June 28, $6 million dollars from the Office of Justice Program’s Bureau of Justice Assistance will go toward hiring, equipping and training Village Public Safety Officers, village police officers and tribal police officers working in rural Alaska, as well as for mobile detention facilities.
The Department of Justice Office on Community Oriented Policing Services is to award $4.5 million for 20 officer positions, plus equipment and training, to Alaska Native grantees by the end of July.
The Office for Victims of Crime and the Office on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention will support Children’s Advocacy Centers in rural hubs, which provide wrap-around services forensic interviews and medical exams for child victims through up to $14 million identified as available for such programs nationwide.
Barr also said that the Office on Violence against Women would issue an award for sexual assault training and technical assistance in Alaska, to include training community health aides in Alaska Native villages to perform sexual assault forensic exams and training for victim advocates. The project is to include community sexual assault training and train village-based victim advocates to accompany victims through the process, including prosecution, as appropriate.
