The noted English Jurist, William Blackstone, said in his famous Commentary, “All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.” This view was repeated in the early United States political history by President John Adams when he was defending British soldiers from charges of murder during the Boston Massacre in the Revolutionary War. “It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.” The United States departed from this old wisdom and decided to punish more behaviors with ever greater sentences. And the punishment disproportionately affected our minority population. Many states did the same, and in Alaska, we now have a huge corrections budget and a new prison that is already filled to capacity. Oh, Alaska Natives are about 38% of the prison population despite constituting about 19% of the total state population.
Let’s examine potential root causes for this disparity the accompanied our more punitive (and costly) society. An analysis of the 2013 Alaska BRFSS (Behavioral Risk Factor and Surveillance System) results found that Alaska Natives with 4 ACE’s were almost double the regular population. Interesting. The prison population is just about double what it should be if justice were more proportional. OK. Now look at this recent article in the Alaska Dispatch News about foster are in Alaska. [LINK HERE] Alaska Native children are hugely overrepresented in that system as well with 60% of foster care placements. [LINK HERE] If this is an indication of children in distress, they are a part of the future pipeline to prison, without intervention.
I wrote recently about the success of Vipassana meditation reducing both prison violence and recidivism by about 20%. And this is a population with severe childhood trauma. If we can start using proven healing supports earlier than prison, the facts tell us we should be able to reduce the prison population substantially. Here is how.
If we adopt appropriate family supports, as many other states have, we can reduce the number of children in distress and taken from their homes. Alabama had a heavily stressed and much litigated system of child protection. In a short period of time, with appropriate investments and management improvements, they now have an exemplary system. [LINK HERE] Contrast this with our much reviled Office of Children’s Services. If we start to intervene with adults early in their slide to prison, perhaps we can avoid the commission of a punishable crime. This is exactly what the Portuguese decriminalization of drugs accomplished. [LINK HERE]
House Concurrent Resolution 21, introduced in Alaska’s legislature on February 5, 2016, is an effort to start this conversation. For Alaskans who are interested in starting that conversation, it would be wonderful if you could contact members of the House H&SS Committee and let them know about your support for HCR21. Here is a link to information abut the committee. [LINK HERE]
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