The legislation, House Bill 49, is under debate as the Legislature nears the end of its annual session. It would reverse many of the pieces of Senate Bill 91 – the 2016 legislation that many Alaskans blame for a spike in crime.
But the new bill comes with a big price tag, and not everyone agrees that it will drive crime rates back down – including Doug Elkins, a convicted felon who was released from prison last month.
In an interview at Partners for Progress, an Anchorage organization that helps released prisoners “re-enter” society, Elkins said he’s been cycling in and out of prison since the 1970s. He’s working on getting clean and went to a drug treatment program in prison, he said.
“For 20 months, I sat in jail not wanting to do nothing but get high. And then, once I got out that’s exactly what I did: I went and got high,” said Elkins, 62, in an interview. “Going to jail, all that’s going to do is remove you from the situation for a minute.”
A 20-month term, like the one Elkins said he served, costs Alaska $100,000, according to state figures that place the daily cost of a prison bed at $169.
Reducing imprisonment for nonviolent criminals was policymakers’ goal in 2016 when they passed SB 91, a major restructuring of Alaska’s criminal justice laws. The idea, supported by both in-state and out-of-state research, was that longer prison sentences aren’t shown to keep prisoners from committing more crimes once they get out.
So SB 91 reduced sentences for nonviolent crimes and budgeted some of the savings to boost drug treatment, as well as programs to help people transition from prison back to regular life. Almost immediately, the changes faced a backlash. Gov. Mike Dunleavy ran on undoing the legislation.
“To the criminals, and to the rapists and molesters who see our children as nothing more than opportunities, I say this to you: We will do everything in our power to stop you, apprehend you and put you in prison for a very long time,” Dunleavy said at his State of the State speech earlier this year, when he pledged to repeal and replace SB 91.
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