AFN, Alaska senators focus on fighting crime, public safety shortages in the state

FAIRBANKS — The state’s largest Native organization on Saturday made a dire call for more state and federal support to combat high rates of violence in villages with few police, while Alaska’s U.S. senators underscored efforts at the federal level to address the problem.

The Alaska Federation of Natives, ending its annual convention in Fairbanks, approved nonbinding resolutions calling for more tribal authority to prosecute crimes in villages and to combat scourges such as high numbers of missing and murdered Native women.

The calls come as the federal government places heightened attention on the lack of village police and crime in the state, after U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr’s declaration of a public safety emergency in rural Alaska this summer following his visit to villages.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, this week introduced a bill giving special authority to up to 30 Alaska tribes to prosecute domestic violence crimes in their villages, including in some cases over non-Natives, not just tribal members.

Speaking to hundreds of AFN delegates Saturday, she stressed that government is only part of the solution. She said people need to communicate with agencies and political leaders to have good government, the theme of the conference.

“We all have to engage," she said. “And we have to do it even when conversations are uncomfortable."

"I think we all know that for far too long, it has been uncomfortable, in fact it has been almost put off limits to talk about the darkness, the violence in our homes and in our community. And when what is felt and what is seen is hidden, crimes are protected and victims are left to feel forgotten, denied and invisible.”

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Murkowski, chair of the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, said for the first time that “real dollars” are being provided in the Interior appropriations bill to address the problem of missing and murdered indigenous women, with increased funding for cold cases, rape kits and other resources.

“We need to address this, we need to name it and we need to end it,” she said, to applause.

AFN focused its convention this year, one of the largest Native gatherings in the U.S., on improving government, following the group’s public disagreements with Gov. Mike Dunleavy over his large budget cuts.

Other resolutions passed by AFN on Saturday called on the governor to reverse his rate increases for elderly living in the state’s Pioneer Homes, restore funding to public broadcasting and reinstate the Ocean Rangers program designed to prevent cruise ships from releasing pollution into Alaska waters.

Much of the conversation during the three-day event centered around rural justice and crimes against women. Underscoring the urgency was the announcement during the convention that Brian Steven Smith, 48, is accused of killing a second Alaska Native women after he had previously been charged in the murder of Kathleen Jo Henry in a separate incident.

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Natasha Singh, general counsel of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, representing tribes in the Fairbanks region, praised Murkowski’s bill on Saturday, calling it “an answer” to a decade of pleas by villages for more authority to prosecute crimes.

Delbert Rexford, with a North Slope village corporation, said AFN has had “heart-wrenching" discussions during the convention around the issue of violence against women.

“If you support no more violence to women, stand up,” Rexford said, drawing convention-goers out of their seats.

An AFN resolution passed Saturday called for state and federal governments to acknowledge the “disproportionately high rates of violence" against Native women and the problem of missing and murdered Native women.

Another called on the state to also announce a public safety emergency as Barr has done, and meet its constitutional obligations to provide public safety for all Alaskans. The measure noted that 70 villages in Alaska have no local police.

“Rural Alaskans, tired of living in fear for their public safety, are increasingly demanding a public safety system and emergency response time on par with urban Alaska to protect rural life and property,” the resolution says.

The problems extend to the court system. Alaska judges, including the chief justice of the state Supreme Court speaking Friday at AFN, warned of serious backlogs of criminal cases that are delaying justice for victims and defendants.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, speaking Thursday to AFN, said he’s working to put more troopers in rural Alaska, will provide funding for VPSO recruits, has hired a prosecutor and investigator to solve cold cases and is taking steps to quickly process a backlog of rape kits that contain evidence of sexual assault.

Speaking to AFN on Saturday, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, also emphasized increased support at the federal level and the need for personal action.

Both senators had appeared beside Barr on Thursday, live by video from Washington, D.C., where Barr announced $42 million in grant awards to Alaska Native tribes and to support tribal victim services and village law enforcement.

Barr stressed that every community that wants local law enforcement should have it. “Every American expects that, and yet we don’t have anything close,” he said.

Sullivan on Saturday told AFN that’s his vision for the state.

“A public safety officer in every village in Alaska, now that to me is what good government looks like,” Sullivan said.

He said he’s co-sponsored a bill introduced by Murkowski that will direct the Department of Justice to focus more attention on violence against Native women. He also sponsored bills to increase legal resources and representation for victims.

The number of rapes in Alaska rose by 11% last year, Sullivan noted. In 2017, the rape rate in Alaska was 250 percent higher than the national average.

“This is intolerable,” he said. “These are our sisters and our mothers and our spouses and our aunties and our daughters. These are our neighbors and our friends."

“This is an issue that affects all of us. All races, all incomes, all ages, people in every corner of Alaska. And it saps our creativity and our energy and it leaves deep permanent scars across generations.”

“We have so much potential as a state, but we can’t realize it if we don’t stop this, if the men of Alaska don’t stop this,” he said.

Murkowski reminded convention-goers of some of the first words delivered in the conference, by a young man from a Southeast village whom the governor honored for his involvement with a coaching program that mentors athletes.

Simon Friday called on Alaska Native men to make the right choices to lower domestic violence rates.

“Let the darkness of domestic violence fall with the rise of the next generation of young men,” Friday said.