Initial Report and Recommendations - Alaska Department of Law

with intensive training and continuing support to maintain skills as needed, (b) developnew approaches to provide housing in the villages for these new positions, (c) recruit andtrain local residents to fill these positions (following a community policing model), and(d) initiate a new system that will ensure that law enforcement officers will betemporarily relocated to cover unfilled positions in the villages while these officers arebeing trained. 87The final recommendation in this thematic category is that the continuingCommission make addressing the scourge of alcohol and substance abuse a priority. Themost oft-repeated concern Alaskans expressed in their testimony to the Commission wasthe toll taken by alcohol and substance abuse. Our fellow Alaskans are, literally, dyingunder the present regime. According to the final report of the Alaska Commission onRural Governance and Empowerment, the alcohol-related mortality rate of AlaskaNatives is three and a half times that of non-Natives, and the incidence of fetal alcoholsyndrome (FAS) among Alaska Natives is three times that of non-Natives. The majorityof crimes committed in rural Alaska are committed under the influence of alcohol ordrugs. Substance abuse is devastating rural Alaska and the current governmental toolsavailable to combat it are inadequate.• Federally recognized tribes have a local governmental presence but havedisputed jurisdiction. The State has jurisdiction but often lacks an effectivelocal government presence. The result is a gap that leaves many villageswithout effective law enforcement tools to combat substance abuse.• Local option laws enable villages to ban or restrict importation of alcohol, butthe laws are enforced and prosecuted primarily from regional centers.Defendants are tried, if at all, away from the villages. Geographic and costconstraints likely will always prevent the state from having magistrates,Troopers, and prosecutors anywhere but in the largest communities.• Second-class city governments in villages cannot effectively addresssubstance abuse. Most have little or no money. State law does not providefor municipal courts and the cost of prosecuting cases in distant state courtsmeans that small cities rarely enforce municipal criminal ordinances.• Tribal governments are the only government in many villages. Many villageshave tribal courts that handle juvenile offenses and child protection cases thatoften entail alcohol problems the tribal courts must deal with. The bestsolutions to community alcohol problems involve the community.The tragic consequences of substance abuse in rural Alaska are well known, andall available vehicles should be mobilized to combat this problem: tribal, state andfederal. Addressing this issue successfully must be the highest priority of the federal,state, and local governments of rural Alaska. The Commission believes that the ultimatesuccess of other recommendations hinges on addressing the problem of alcohol andsubstance abuse in rural Alaska. 888788Recommendation 20.Recommendation 21.Alaska Rural Justice and Law Enforcement Commission - Page 50