NCJ Number
81549
Date Published
1981
Length
89 pages
Annotation
Following an analysis of the public safety and justice problems in the remote native villages in the wilderness areas of Alaska, this monograph offers recommendations for solving these problems and enhancing State and local cooperation.
Abstract
The typical native village in Alaska has between 70 and 1,300 residents, is located over 100 miles from a commercial city, and is accessible only by aircraft or wilderness travel. The villages lack sewer systems, running water, and organized methods for fighting fires. Just over half of Alaska's rural villages employ part-time police officers but have no other representative of the justice system. Social control is a hybrid system combining native ways and Anglo-American techniques. State policies sometimes are in conflict with the perceived needs and expectations of community residents. Perceived shortcomings in laws and regulations related to hunting and fishing are of particular concern because of residents' heavy dependence on these activities for food and social well-being. While public safety problems and interpersonal crimes appear to be as serious as elsewhere in Alaska, village residents' main concerns are their communities' extreme socioeconomic problems. Alaska's public safety and justice system does not meet the needs of the villages because it is highly centralized, organized around the largest cities, and staffed by nonnatives who have often never visited a rural native community. The people of native communities must travel to the urban centers for services and justice. The State should adopt a comprehensive and rational approach for dealing with the many problems of the rural justice system. One unit of the State government's executive branch should be given the responsibility and resources for planning and coordinating the improvement of public safety and justice in the State. A regionalized system and a reliable emergency communications system should be established. The State should also provide foundation grants for local public safety and justice services to every established community in the State. Footnotes, tables, 42 references, and an appendix presenting samples of village ordinances are provided.