Initial Report and Recommendations - Alaska Department of Law

“The collaboration between our community and the tribal court has been veryeffective due to the fact we are dealing with our problems locally. To keep our tribalcourt strong and continuing we need support from the State of Alaska to honor our tribalcourt orders and support our efforts in stopping the illegal flow of alcohol and drugs intoour communities. Our tribal court orders include searching for illegal drugs andprohibited alcohol.“Our tribal court has gone through tough challenges involving alcohol interdiction.They have stood up and are saying, ‛Enough is enough!’ Members of our village arenow going to airplanes and boats to search suspected people and bootleggers for illegalimportation of alcohol. They confiscate this alcohol and destroy it. These people don’twant any more deaths or any more alcohol related accidents to happen. We have seentoo many children and families torn apart and future generations affected due to alcoholand drugs. All this is preventable. We know that.” Shannon Johnson-NanalookTraditional Council of Togiak“Wa’qaa. Ca’mai. I’m Kathy Melbook. A little bit English. Twelve years old,school. Okay. I like to find out—I need help for Bethel. I live in Bethel. Bethel, too manybootleggers. Too many marijuana, Bethel. How come young boys, young girls kill forself? I need help. You and me and council together for work, find out. How come youngguys, young boy kill for self? Okay. That’s all. I’m done.”Kathy Melbrook, Student, BethelAgain, the Commission would have preferred to include much more of thetestimony in this report but was constrained by costs and space. Readers should takeadvantage of the presentation of all of the testimony on the Alaska Rural Justice and LawEnforcement Commission’s website. Additional quotes from testimony provided at theCommission’s public hearings are distributed throughout the remainder of the report.B. Systemic Obstacles in Rural Alaska1. Lack of Economic Opportunity“I’d like to talk briefly about economic justice. You’ve heard or should hearthroughout your travels around the State that there are a disproportionate number ofyoung Native men interacting with the criminal justice system. And in our community, byfar, most arrests and convictions are alcohol related. The unemployment andunderemployment in this age range runs around 90 percent in our communities. This Ithink is a causal factor to the interaction with the justice system because there’s a lack ofmeaningful work and so people are frustrated, depressed, they don’t have anything to doand so I think this causes an opportunity to run afoul of the justice system.”Deborah Lyn, Special Assistant, City of BarrowSeveral striking facts about rural Alaska are that in most villages there arepractically no jobs, the population continues to grow, 21 and the cash needs of individualresidents are growing as well. These conditions have existed for decades, andcommittees and commissions studying them have published reports for decades, all ofwhich start to sound very much alike. In 1968, the Federal Field Commission forDevelopment Planning in Alaska reported:21As a caveat, the Commission notes that in many rural Alaska villages, population growth has beenstymied by the lack of available, additional housing, forcing many young people to leave the villagesand move to urban centers, more often than not Anchorage.Alaska Rural Justice and Law Enforcement Commission - Page 18