He knows the law, he knows the problems, he knows the people, he knows the solutions - and he's very good at articulating them. The Fairbanks-based Tanana Chiefs Conference and Juneau-based Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska also testified in support of SB 91.Īnd Razo, the chairman of the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission that helped draft the legislation, was key to building political support for it, said SB 91's sponsor, North Pole Republican Sen. But what we're trying to do is get a sense of fairness in the justice system." "We are not condoning criminal activity," Kitka said in a phone interview. And its president, Julie Kitka, wrote in a subsequent opinion piece that the legislation would "directly benefit Alaska Native families, individuals and communities." The Alaska Federation of Natives, at its 2015 convention, passed a resolution supporting criminal justice reform. "The reform aspect of SB 91, to me, is critical to the Alaska Native community, and our efforts at reducing the proportion of Alaska Natives - particularly young males - that become hardened criminals in the system," said House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, D-Dillingham, who's part Aleut.Īlaska Native groups and leaders threw their weight behind SB 91, the original overhaul. The changes in SB 91, backed by research from the nonpartisan, nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts, were written in an effort to drive down those recidivism rates.Īlaska House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, D-Dillingham.
One decade-old study cited by the federal commission found that Alaska Natives represented 47 percent of the victims in domestic assaults reported to state troopers.Īnd while 66 percent of the felons released by the state end up back in jail or prison within three years, that number is 73 percent for Alaska Natives, according to corrections department data. A federal Indian law and order commission said in 2013 that problems with tribal communities' safety are severe across the United States, "but they are systematically the worst in Alaska." Independent assessments have documented the failures of the state's criminal justice system in the way it works with Alaska Natives, and Native villages and tribes. The legislation also was designed to improve the results of Alaska's justice system - especially the recidivism level, or the rate at which people released from prison end up returning. It also boosted spending on rehabilitation and drug and alcohol treatment programs, which can help fight the addictions that sometimes fuel crime. SB 91, which was pushed through the Legislature by conservative lawmakers, aimed to cut Alaska's criminal justice costs by using alternatives to the prison beds that cost more than $150 a day. Meanwhile, there are no Alaska Native judges on the state's district, superior or supreme courts. On that date in 2014, the prison's population was 120 Alaska Natives, and no one else. On July 1, at Nome's Anvil Mountain Correctional Center, where Razo visited, 122 of the 125 prisoners were Alaska Native, according to Department of Corrections data. Razo and groups such as the Alaska Federation of Natives cite the fact that the state imprisons Alaska Natives and American Indians at a disproportionate rate: They make up 15 percent of the state's residents, but represent 35 percent of the people in state custody.
He is one of many Alaska Native leaders and groups that have pushed for the overhaul - and that are now defending it during the current special legislative session against a backlash from some Alaskans who say it's fueling a rise in crime. Gregory Razo, CIRI vice president for government contracting, is chair of the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission. Razo chairs the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission, the panel that recommended the comprehensive changes to bail, sentencing, and parole and probation that lawmakers approved last year. Razo, in a recent interview, said he kept lessons from that trip in mind as he helped lead last year's push for Senate Bill 91, the now-controversial overhaul to the state's criminal justice system. "People that are just in there watching TV, killing time, in some cases for years: How can we expect them, once they finally come out of prison - because almost everybody finally comes out of prison - to be useful members of society when they have never had an opportunity to do that?" "It was a waste of humanity," said Razo, a former prosecutor and defense attorney who's now an executive at Cook Inlet Region Inc., the Anchorage-based Alaska Native regional corporation. The library computers looked broken there was a school, but no teacher, he said. Razo, who is Yup'ik, was shocked by what he saw: dozens and dozens of young Alaska Native men, doing hard time. JUNEAU - Two years ago, Greg Razo took a trip to the state prison in Nome.
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