Senator John Coghill spoke with us about Senate Bill 64 which aims to curb repeat offenders in Alaska and passed from the Senate to the House last week.
Sen. Coghill: “Senate Bill 64 is a collaborative work between Johnny Ellis, Senator French, Senator Dyson and myself trying to change the recidivism rate in Alaska, it is very very high. So we’ve taken some of the tools that we’ve seen in other states that have been effective. One of them is a programmatic approach.”
Coghill said the programmatic approach aims to increase accountability of non-dangerous individuals released through programs like 24-hour alcohol and drug monitoring and possibly residential programs.
Another portion would implement swifter punishment for parolees who break the terms of their release.
Sen. Coghill: “They call it PACE: probation parole and accountability certain enforcement and what that says is you’re on probation or parole but if you violate the conditions of the probation its a swift and certain punishment, things happen right now.”
Although that portion of the bill is modeled after a Hawaii Bill, Sen. Coghill and his collaborators have pulled from successful corrections reform out of Idaho, Colorado, and Texas as well.
The bill also will create the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission which will inspect Alaska’s current criminal justice system.
Sen. Coghill: “So we’ve put in a commission to look at our sentencing structure and look at the rigid parts of it, where our programs work, where they fail. And so the sentencing commission has been given probably a 3 year life to come back with some recommendations.”
Sen. Coghill said that by curbing recidivism in Alaska this bill will save the state money by reducing incarcerations and not having to spend funds on building new prisons.
If the bill is passed, some of that money saved may be put into a Recidivism Fund which would be used for individuals released to get into the specific programs they need.