The Alaska Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault and the University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center completed the quinquennial Alaska Victimization Survey, which occurs every five years. The 2020 survey estimated that 57.7% of Alaska women had experienced intimate partner violence, sexual violence, or both during their lifetime, a 14.7% increase from the 2015 survey. The number of women reported experiencing intimate partner violence, sexual violence or both in the last year remained at the same rate of 8.1% as reported in 2015.
In following up on those survey results for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, DPS Commissioner Jim Cockrell joined KSRM’s “Sound Off” saying:
“So that’s over 200,000 Alaska women that have been victimized and, again, those rates are just horrible and a black eye to the people of the state and to the state in general. You know, the Alaska State Troopers investigates domestic violence throughout the state in our jurisdiction. The big issue here is we do our job, we arrest somebody, the defender goes to jail, however, we cannot arrest our way through this process because once we’re involved somebody’s victimized and we’re already too late. We’re already behind the power curve. If you look at some of the studies, including children and the person victimized, again, normally a woman, their chances of suffering from mental illness, substance abuse and other types of adverse issues, that will stay with them the rest of their lives. That’s something that, as a state, we’ll have to address further on as either the kids get older, or the victim needs to receive mental health counselling for sometimes long periods of time.”
The 2020 phone survey included 2,100 women in Alaska over the age of 18 who answered questions related to their experiences with physical and psychological intimate partner violence, stalking, and sexual violence. Past iterations of this statewide survey were done in 2010 and 2015.
Cockrell said:
“Your Alaska State Troopers investigated 3,100 domestic violence cases last year in 2020 and that’s just what was reported to our department. We figured, probably 50% are in that range are probably not reported to our local state troopers. Enough is enough. When does it end?”
Domestic violence remains a serious crime that crosses all economic, racial, gender, educational, religious, and societal barriers. Domestic violence has a disproportional impact on Alaska Native populations where four in five Alaska Native women have experienced one or more forms of violence in their lifetime.
