Opinion: Decrease in Crime is Good News for Anchorage

Originally published September 11th, 2020 in the Anchorage Daily News. Please click here to see the original publication.

Anchorage Police officer Ben Yoon conducts a traffic stop for a motorist who sped through a school zone along Minnesota Blvd early Thursday morning, Sept. 21, 2017. The driver, who was traveling 35mph in a 20mph school zone, was given a warning. The fine for his infraction could have been $270. (Loren Holmes / Alaska Dispatch News)

Improving public safety and making wise use of our public safety resources are the keys to effective criminal justice policy in our community and across Alaska. The Anchorage Police Department recently reported crime statistics that showed positive steps in improving public safety. For example, calls for vehicle theft and other property crimes dropped by roughly half from 2017 to 2020 and the number of homicides is the lowest in 15 years. These trends are good news for Anchorage and a testament to the fine work of our Anchorage Police Department.

APD compared the first half of 2020 with the same time frame in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and this year, APD has seen calls for service decrease across the board for theft, stolen vehicles, burglary, vandalism and shoplifting. Reports of assault declined from 1,619 calls for the first six months of 2019 to 1,508 calls in the first six months of 2020, and calls for sex assault decreased from 349 to 260 in the same period.

According to Police Chief Justin Doll, the most significant change is the Anchorage homicide rate, which had 18 homicide victims between Jan. 1 and July 15, 2019, and only five homicide victims in Anchorage over the same period in 2020. Chief Doll also explained that these downward trends began in 2019, before diagnosis of the first coronavirus cases in China.

For the past few years, public safety officials, the Legislature and community stakeholders have been working to make wise use of our public safety resources by focusing on prison for violent offenders and improving rehabilitation opportunities for non-violent, first-time offenders. These efforts are beginning to succeed as demonstrated by the declining crime rates, saving the cost of building a new prison, and avoiding the cost of sending prisoners out of state.

Part of improving rehabilitation options includes how we treat those experiencing behavioral health and substance abuse crises and whether it is more effective to keep them out of the criminal justice system.

During this year’s session, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 120 to authorize crisis stabilization centers, which are a much-needed intermediate treatment option for those suffering from a mental health or substance abuse crisis. These centers are part of the Crisis Now model developed with leading behavioral health organizations and are a proven success in other states, including Arizona and Washington. Crisis stabilization centers are open 24/7, staffed by mental health professionals trained in de-escalation, and are designed to help stabilize and deescalate those experiencing behavioral health and substance abuse crises. Once the centers are established, police officers will be able to take individuals experiencing such a crisis to these centers rather than to jail. The goal is to improve the effectiveness of mental health and substance abuse treatment and reduce the cost of holding these people in jail, where they do not receive any treatment.

The decrease in crime in Anchorage and the progress in making Crisis Now intermediate treatment available in Alaska are positive steps toward improving public safety and making wise use of our public safety resources. Moving forward, my hope is that the legislature, the governor, and the Municipality will continue to work together with public safety professionals, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, and members of the community so that Alaskans can be optimistic about having an effective criminal justice system.

Rep. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage, was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2014. He has served on the Anchorage Assembly and also as acting mayor of Anchorage.

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