The charge to which the Alaska Natives Commission responded when it was first formed in 1992 was exceedingly broad. Issues were brought forward by those who provided testimony in Commission hearings that ranged over a broad list of topics that included problems with the state and federal government, subsistence, courts, corrections, and Native regional corporations. Faced with a diversity of issues that could have taken 18 years to address, rather than only 18 months, the Commission chose a subset that, from the testimony and its own evaluation, clearly held a high priority for the Alaska Native people. This study focuses on those issues and proposes a number of recommendations that, if followed, will lead to a reduction in the problems that Alaska Natives face.

A common theme in the hearings was the need for Alaska Native villages — "tribes" in the federal terminology — to regain governmental control of their own communities and to exercise authority in a number of areas which are discussed in this study. This theme was stressed by Mr. Will Mayo, President of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, who testified at hearings held in Fairbanks in July 1992. Remarking on the 200th anniversary of Columbus' visit, Mr. Mayo pointed to the fact that Alaska Natives have lived on their homeland for perhaps 30,000 years and then added:

The 500 years of relationship with the Western culture has brought, by far, the greatest changes. It is the changes that we have seen that have, I think, initiated and called for this Commission. One thing that I am grateful for is that though we know that many people left their homeland to come to our country in search of hope, success, gold, fur, oil, fish, riches, and freedom . . . most came for freedom. The ironic thing about it is that the people whose home this was for thousands of years uninterrupted have suffered much because of the coming.

Though this impact on our land and our resources has been very detrimental in some ways, yet wise men who came together seeking independence from England sat down and said: "We need to create a nation where we can exercise freedom; where we can exercise basic human rights with dignity." And in the development of their organic document, the United States Constitution, these men chose to recognize, without question, the human rights of self-determination and of freedom and of use and occupancy of the Native people. The only thing they said was that Congress will have the power, and only Congress, to regulate commerce with the tribes. So they did not even choose to question the existence of tribes. That was not even an issue with them.

I believe that many of the difficulties we have are a result of the forcing of a new way, of a new culture, of new ideas upon the Native people without their consent, without their cooperation, or even without their input. I believe that the cultural clash that occurred could have been greatly mitigated, greatly lessened in all of its negative impacts, if only succeeding generations of American immigrants, since the drafters of the Constitution, would have followed the principles of that Constitution and allowed Congress to govern and regulate the relationship. Instead, what we have seen is that, as time has marched on in these 500 years, there has been a gradual — and sometimes not so gradual — continuous loss of rights, recognition of the human rights and human dignity of the Native American people.

I urge you to look back to the motivations of the drafts of the Constitution of the United States to reflect on their good work . . . I urge you to recognize the right to self-determination, to tribal government, and recognize also the importance of the subsistence way of life to the survival of a culture of people who have every right to continue to exist in a form that they design and in a form that they control. And I think that by working together, as government to government, that the tribes, and the State of Alaska, and the United States government can work to fashion a hopeful future to assist the Native people in overcoming the social disruptions, the problems that have emerged for the last 500 years, and that there be mutual respect for the lands, the rights, and the culture.

The issue of self-determination has been in the forefront of the work of the Commission, and it is represented often in the findings and recommendations that have resulted from this work. Self-determination, as a basic principle, must be viewed, however, in several different dimensions. The controversy surrounding the State's refusal to acknowledge tribal sovereignty is an important dimension and is covered thoroughly in other volumes of the Commission's Final Report. And although sovereignty is also addressed in this portion of the Commission's study, there are many other dimensions and consequences of self-determination that are important to the future of Alaska Native people. They include the ability to resolve disputes within the tribal community; eliminating problems that revolve around "corrections" as that term applies to Alaska Native offenders; offering fair and equitable probation and parole options to Alaska Natives who reside in the bush; and responding to other needs related to governance by and for Alaska Native communities. These issues, which involve the law enforcement, judicial, and correctional aspects of self-governance are the topics of Part I of this study.

Other problems and policies related to self-governance have become evident as well, not the least of which relate to contracting federal programs under P.L. 93-638 and P.L. 100-472. Many IRA councils and traditional councils continue to struggle to maintain any semblance of government in the absence of a stable source of funds, however small, to pay for day-to-day operations. Others have chosen to exercise their limited tribal authority by proposing to contract programs that have, for many years, been contracted by their respective regional non-profit Native corporation. And questions concerning the control and relative centralization of some of those corporations were asked during Task Force and Commission hearings. These topics, which concern another dimension of self-determination, comprise Part II of this study.

Finally, as Mr. Mayo noted, there is the fundamental issue of subsistence, as a way of life rather than a set of "subsistence regulations," which have now become bureaucratically instituted within both the state and federal governments. The Alaska Native people have no effective input — no voice — in the decision-making processes that are too often dominated by loud (and rich) interest groups whose objectives are diametrically opposed to the essence of a subsistence lifestyle. How best can the Alaska Native people exert self-determination within this complicated context? How can tribal and regional differences and traditions be safeguarded in the new, regulatory world of "fish and game"? How can disasters such as that which befell the people of the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim River be avoided in the future? These questions have been brought before the Alaska Natives Commission, and they are discussed in fuller detail later. Because of the fact that they also relate to the social-cultural aspects of Alaska Native life and to the economy of Alaska Natives, they are also addressed in studies of other Task Forces. Thus, their coverage in this study is comparatively slight, not by any means to symbolize their importance but rather as a result of their having been covered in greater detail elsewhere.

Under ideal circumstances, the Commission would have been able to research every aspect of every issue related to self-determination and to all other governance problems and policies that impact the Alaska Native people. Time did not allow that: as mentioned in the opening paragraph, we did not have 18 years to conduct our work, only 18 months, which passed with surprising speed. Though not all-inclusive, the study does highlight some of the major problems concerning some aspects of governance issues; and it offers recommendations that, in the determination of the Commission, will reduce, if not eliminate, those problems.

There is no doubt that a process of deculturation (i.e., the elimination of traditional values and behavior without their necessarily being replaced with another set) has had its impact on Alaska Natives and that the extent of that impact varies from one region to another. The Aleut and Alutiiq people, for example, have been largely under White control for two hundred years, while there are some Yupik, Inupiat, and Athabascan villages that largely escaped White contact until well into this century. Irrespective of the varying degrees of overlay of White ways and the loss of Native ways, there are some fundamental, intrinsic values, ethics, and principles to which all Alaska Native cultural groups adhere, and some of these influence the interaction that Natives have with law enforcement, judicial, and correctional systems. To the extent that these have been articulated and can be understood, they will be briefly reviewed here.

Individuals testifying before the Commission and experts who have been contacted to provide insights, recommendations, and advice have often mentioned the propensity of Natives to "fess up" when asked about an offense. An enlightening example of the pervasive ethic to tell the truth and fully disclose what one has done was related by Ms. Mary Geddes, Assistant Federal Public Defender, in her testimony before the Commission in April 1993. She described an event that took place in a North Slope Village when the residents mistakenly thought a DEW Line station had been abandoned and its contents were free for the taking. After someone announced as much on the CB, about 40 people rode out to the Station on their snow machines and removed the useful items. Later, someone discovered that the Station had not been abandoned after all and announced on the village CB that everyone should take the items to the school where they were to be collected and returned to the U.S. government. When everyone did just that, they told officials that, yes, they had gone out and taken the property, after which the federal government decided to prosecute every one of them.

Obviously, the expectation of a noncensorious reaction to telling the truth is not valid when dealing with current judicial reality. When combined with plea or charge bargaining, which seems to predominate in much of Alaska's judicial system, the Native ethic of truth telling and full disclosure will almost inevitably lead to jail time. It is not the intent of the Commission to raise this issue as a means to imply that Natives should not tell the truth. Rather, the ethic is mentioned here because of its influence on the processes and outcomes of the Western systems now in place in Alaska.

A second rule or ethic that was central to the conduct of Native life in traditional times and still remains influential is the avoidance of telling others what they should do with their lives. This ethic was elegantly described by Dr. Clare Brant, a Native psychiatrist, in a speech delivered in Northern Canada, which is quoted here:

The Ethic of Non-interference is probably one of the oldest and one of the most pervasive of all the ethics by which we Native people live. It has been practiced for 25 or 30 thousand years, but it is not very well articulated . . . This principle essentially means that an Indian will never interfere in any way with the rights, privileges, and activities of another person.

I'll have to expand on that and explain it by comparing it with white people and the way they operate. In every human relationship, there is some element of influence, interference, or even downright compulsion. The white man is torn between two ideals. On the one hand, he believes in freedom, in minding his own business and in the right of people to make up their minds for themselves. On the other hand, he believes he should be his brother's keeper and not abstain from giving advice or even taking action when he perceives his brother making an error.

Thus, at a white person's party, when someone announces that he wishes to buy a pear tree, he can usually expect someone to suggest he buy a peach tree instead. Someone will be glad, in a friendly way of course, to tell him what he should be reading, doing, talking, feeling, listening to, etc. The Indian society does not allow this. Interference in any form is forbidden, regardless of the following irresponsibility or mistakes that your brother is going to make.

Typical Native story-telling; use of frequent analogies, metaphors, and anecdotes; and the seemingly circular way of talking about issues before decisions are made are all examples of the ways in which this ethic portrays itself. Rather than telling someone what to do, an Elder will tell a story about someone else who, when faced with a problem similar to the listener's, did such and such. The listener has the opportunity to learn and to change his behavior as a result of the information contained in the story, but he does not come away feeling that he has been told what to do. Likewise, the Elder does not feel guilty of having transgressed the ethic. This manner of communication is common in tribal court proceedings as well.

There are other ethics that "mediate" between the perceptions and behavior of Alaska Natives and consequently relate to their involvement in the various criminal justice and correctional systems. The Commission has chosen to illuminate only a few, in order to provide the reader some insight into broad cultural and traditional influences that can be said to predominate throughout all of the very different Alaska Native groups. Many others are more specific to one group or another, adding to the complexity of both understanding the ways in which these factors influence behavior and discovering solutions that will remedy some of the- problems that have been made known to the Commission over the course of its work. The fact that these more subtle characteristics are not discussed here should not be misinterpreted to mean that they are not important. Rather, those who use this document as the starting point in making changes to the systems that will improve the state of Alaska Natives should study both the common and the individual ethics and fit program and policy changes to both.

There is a relative over-representation of Alaska Natives and American Indians throughout the law enforcement, judicial, and correctional systems, but there are key areas that stand out from the rest as revealing particular problems. The Commission surveyed the entire system, reviewed extensive data, and received testimony from a multitude of citizens, including Native inmates in two of Alaska's correctional facilities. The data are presented .and highlighted first, followed by recommendations of the Commission concerning ways in which injustices and other inadequacies must be immediately addressed. Additional suggestions for demonstration programs that will test new methods of more fairly handling the legal problems of Alaska Natives who encounter these systems are also offered.

In early testimony taken by the Alaska Natives Commission, there were frequent references to apparently biased processes and outcomes within the law enforcement and Judicial systems, with higher conviction rates for Natives in many crimes, differences in sentencing, etc. In order to assess the situation fairly, the Commission first reviewed the arrest records, utilizing the Uniform Crime Reporting system of the Department of Public Safety. This analysis showed that even at this earliest level of contact, for some offenses the Alaska Natives and American Indians tend to be comparatively over-represented. Since this comprises the first point of contact in this multi-phased system, it will be presented first.

There is further evidence of a deep-seated behavioral source of many of these offenses. The Anchorage office of the Court Appointed Special Advocate Program, which represents children in danger of harm resulting from family problems, reports that 51 percent of its caseload for Calendar 1991 was comprised of Natives.

In concluding this section of the review, it must be said that although there may be some inappropriate arrests and biases among arresting officers, the data indicate that there is an underlying reality that Natives are committing some specific types of offenses far in excess of their numbers. In other words, there are types of criminal activities that appear to predominate within the lifestyles of Alaska Natives, whether they reside in the Bush or in urban areas. The Commission recommendations that address these problems speak to the need for dramatically increasing support for families in crisis and for teaching young people appropriate parenting skills before they start a family. The recommendations also relate to the fundamentally high prevalence of alcohol abuse among the Native population and the fact that until that essential, underlying behavioral disability is overcome, the situation will remain largely unchanged.

The Alaska Sentencing Commission's 1992 Annual Report showed that, whereas Alaska Natives represent 16 percent of the general population of the state, their representation among the incarcerated population is more than twice that figure, at a little over 32 percent. But the data also show differences in the types of crimes for which Natives are being incarcerated. Within the misdemeanants, for example, 43 percent are Native; among sex offenders, 39 percent are Native; and among probation and parole revocations, 41 percent are Native. Data reported for 1990 showed that 50 percent of those convicted of second degree murder were Native. For some other crimes, the representation of Natives was lower. among drug offenders, for example, only eight percent were Native. Although plea bargaining has been banned in Alaska for 16 years, "charge bargaining" exists, and it has been hypothesized that the disproportionate number of Alaska Natives convicted and incarcerated may be, in part, due to their more readily admitting to a lowered charge, which may in turn be related to the mediating cultural ethic of avoiding confrontation, which was discussed earlier in this study. Confusion about and misunderstanding of the judicial system further adds to the problems. As Mr. Louie Chikoyak, an inmate at Hiland Mountain, offered in written testimony to the Alaska Natives Commission, when he asked other Native inmates how their court proceedings went, they usually answered, "I don't know."

Another example of the tendency to "cop" to a lower charge and to be. confused by the proceedings was given in the testimony of Mr. Bertrand Rose from Hoonah, interviewed at Hiland Mountain, where he is now incarcerated. In response to questioning from Mr. Boyko, Mr. Rose said:

I felt like a lot of people that have pleaded out have been manipulated . . . I'm sitting there speaking with my attorney and he's telling me nothing but what I'm going to face, what's going to happen to me. And then he comes up with this magical charm, you know, what I should accept . . . no matter if I get on the stand and no matter what I say, that I'm going to be convicted.

Of Alaska Natives who are currently incarcerated, 66.4 percent have one or more prior convictions, compared with 51.1 percent of the White inmate population. The greatest discrepancy exists between these two groups in prior felonies recorded: 35.6 percent of the Native inmates have one or more prior felony convictions, whereas only 21.0 percent of the Whites do (and 22.8 percent of the Blacks).

There is a cultural and historical issue concerning incarceration that must be considered because it may provide insights regarding solutions to some of the problems that now exist within the judicial and correctional systems and the manner in which they impact Alaska Natives. It is the fact that there is no indication that any Alaska Native group used incarceration as a means of punishment. In testimony provided to the Commission, oral histories taken over the years, and written reports going back to early Russian visits to Alaska, there are not any examples of offenders having been "locked up." There were many different types of punishment, from embarrassment in front of the Elders to banishment and execution, but there were no jails.

Three other issues before the Commission are alcohol's effect on Natives and subsequent criminal behavior, the frequency with which Alaska Natives experience probation and parole violations that return them to prison, and the absence of local control in dispute resolution. By implementing strategies to correct those problems, the disproportionate representation of Alaska Natives within the correctional system could be corrected to an extent. The problems that are specific to probation and parole are discussed next.

The question that must be asked is whether the probation and parole systems in Alaska discriminate against Natives, especially rural Natives. Answers to that question have come from testimony and can be substantiated by the statistics. In her testimony to the Commission in March 1993, Ms. Margi Mock, Supervisor for Statewide Appeals in the Public Defender Office, presented a strong case both for bias in the system and for changing that system.

Native American people serve their sentences on the installment plan. . . When I have Native American clients who say to me, "I want to take the State's deal and do probation," inside I just die a little, because it doesn't work. And it doesn't work because, A, they don't understand how it works, no matter how many times it's explained, because . . . the system, as it's set up, doesn't make sense; so there's no reason they should understand it. And B, it doesn't work because I don't think the probation officers understand how the system works either. I would rather see my clients flat time their sentence.

The current system requires that, with few exceptions, probation and parole be taken in Anchorage, Fairbanks, or some other city; options for parole to one's village are limited by the absence of probation/parole officers in those villages. Yet it has become obvious that some sort of local control should at least be tested, if not routinely established. This has been offered in testimony: the following was stated by Mr. Paul Shewfelt, an Athabascan from Ft. Yukon now serving time at Hiland Mountain. In response to Mr. Boyko's question about the possibility of handling criminal court problems at the local level, Mr. Shewfelt responded:

. . . basically, a community is very close-knit and do have ways of dealing with their own people. I know that any kind of parole or probation would be more realistically — have a greater chance of success by transferring the responsibilities over to their tribal or municipal governments, because it would be very hard to violate the conditions of release if that were to happen. This thought was echoed by Mr. James Simpkin, an inmate at Spring Creek:

In most cases, the Native inmate that is eligible for parole or mandatory release could make it if he or she could go back to the village and live with family and friends. They could adjust better to the outside this way. By making them stay in the city and get a job, it's harder on them. We need to get in an environment we are comfortable in. Most Natives, once in their village, can most likely make it . . . Telling them they have to work and stay in the city is a hardship on them, before they even get a chance to make it on the outside.

An example of locally based, intensive treatment that has been found to be successful by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, the Alaska Youth Initiative (AYI), was designed to provide individualized services to severely emotionally disturbed children, with the specific intent of preventing more expensive and more restrictive residential care. When an AYI child is "enrolled" in the system, a team is assembled and funds are contracted through a local mental health provider to support the treatment, foster families, respite, school assistance, counselors, etc., as needed. When the services are no longer needed, the funds are eliminated, thereby avoiding continuing the costs to state government. A similar program could be attempted on a pilot basis for providing both monitoring and supportive "services" to individuals released to their Villages on parole or probation. Others, however, have suggested that voluntary monitoring and support are more culturally appropriate and effective means of handling village-based probation and parole. Psychologically, one is more committed to a role if one engages in that role without remuneration, and community members who are working cooperatively to help a village resident regain his/her status and re-establish him/herself will be more inclined to embrace their task more thoughtfully if they are doing it for the good of the community as a whole rather than for a paycheck.

Several options are included in the final recommendations, but the first recommendation of the Commission deals with effecting an immediate rectification of the present situation by requiring the Department of Corrections to review the records of all Native inmates who have been re-incarcerated for parole or probation violations and to release those who are not dangerous. Additional recommendations focus on alternative systems that need to be established in rural Alaska to enable inmates to be released back to their villages and to fulfill the requirements of their probation or parole while being monitored locally and supported by community efforts to keep them out of correctional facilities in the future.

It is not the intent of the Commission to speculate about causes of the problems just discussed or to point fingers at those who administer — or have designed — any of the systems now in place. The evolution of the law enforcement, judicial, and correctional systems that exist in Alaska involves centuries of Western European thinking, and by their very nature they are neither sensitive to Native values and ethics nor responsive to Native needs. This was mentioned in the earlier discussion of Native law ways and ethics. However, the mere fact that these systems were imposed on the indigenous people of Alaska does not justify their continuation without appropriate changes that will, at least to some extent, rectify the inadequacies and remove the biases that prevail.

Probable systemic causes for some of the problems that have been reviewed in preceding sections are briefly reviewed here as a preface to the presentation of the Commission's recommendations.

a. Issues Related to Racial Discrimination. It is inevitable in a state such as Alaska that there will be cases of racial discrimination attributable to individuals beliefs, attitudes, and personal history, albeit bigoted at times. It is also inevitable that discrimination has occurred on the part of individual employees of the state and federal systems charged with the responsibility and having the authority to carry out law enforcement, judicial, and correctional programs in Alaska. But it is beyond the realm of the Commission to attempt to eliminate biased attitudes, as lofty and honorable a goal as that would be. Rather, the Commission must speak to statutes, regulations, policies, and procedures that have been put into place and incorporate elements that discriminate against Alaska Natives.

Consistent with a wide range of policies established by other states in the not-too-distant past to prevent minorities from gaining equal rights, some of the discriminatory aspects of the law enforcement, judiciary, and correctional systems are not immediately obvious. An example of a similar discriminatory practice in Alaska will help clarify the point: if a member of the majority were "forced" to participate in a court hearing in Bethel which is carried out in English, no one would voice a concern, but would the attorneys for the defense be acquiescent if the hearing were in Yupik? Given the reverse, with a Yupik-speaking Native defendant being forced to participate in an English-speaking court room, are there grounds for dismissal or any other recourse available to the defendant? Obviously, the White defendant is not troubled by having to speak his/her "native tongue" and hear only that language spoken throughout the proceedings; no complaints will be heard. Regrettably, the system — which is obviously discriminatory — does not permit any other option for the Native defendant who is not allowed to speak his/her Yupik language or hear his/her accusers, witnesses, or lawyers speak in Yupik. One important consequence of this, which was pointed out by Ms. Galen Paine, who was a Public Defender in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta for several years, is that the requirement that court proceedings be conducted in English practically eliminates the selection of Elders as jurors, because many Elders do not understand English. The court in Barrow, on the other hand, is equipped with earphones, and cases are tried bilingually with translation in Inupiaq and English. In Canada, federal policy requires that court proceedings be carried out in the first, Native language of the defendant unless he/she chooses otherwise. There is no reason why a similar policy cannot be implemented here.

There are other examples of built-in biases and discrimination in the systems that are now in place in Alaska. Although it cannot be denied that the data appear to show that a higher rate of offenses in certain categories is at the base of the disproportionate representation of Natives in these systems, those data are not entirely free of bias. In parts of Alaska there is an expectation held by non-Native law enforcement officers that Natives are trouble makers, no good, drunks, etc., and that attitude cannot help but enter into their behavior when it comes to encountering Natives and handling their behavior. There are no doubt instances in which non-Natives are warned and told to go home while Natives are arrested. Although it is difficult to document such bias, it is not difficult to envision it, and in several instances complaints by those providing testimony to the Commission alluded to such events. This difference is compounded in some areas by the Native perception that infractions of state law may create a nuisance but are not offenses for which they should be arrested. As Hippler and Conn note:

To return to the main point, however, it is more important to the Commission to correct statutes, regulations, and policies and to establish barriers to the continuation of practices that may be discriminatory, even if only accidentally. By clearly prohibiting their occurrence, the tables can be turned, and those whose mission it is to administer these systems can do so fairly and without bias toward the Natives of Alaska. The recommendations of the Commission incorporate anti-discrimination policies and are founded in the belief that until every Alaska Native has precisely the same opportunity to enjoy true justice, the system will need to continue to be changed.

b. Issues Related to Culture, Language, and Traditions. Referring back briefly to the comments of Rupert Ross, the Northern Native's perspective on crime and criminal behavior is akin to accepting that an otherwise good person has made a mistake and that the community should help that person find him/herself, actualize the goodness in him/her, and find harmony within the community. Rather than punishing an offender for being a bad person, the Native way is to guide the person toward a positive, more harmonious life within the larger Native community. Although this viewpoint is stated simplistically here, it offers a counterpoint to the Western perspective that is pervasive throughout the systems now in place in Alaska. As part of the reframing of these systems, both the state and the federal government must reconsider the important and overriding ethical and value-laden aspects of the Native traditions.

Hippler and Conn, whose work was referenced earlier, point to the relatively greater compatibility of the federal system's application in Alaska in territorial days, when government agents were at least familiar with the Tribal Council's authority from working with tribes in the Lower 48. They also, however, noted some significant differences between Alaska's tribal groups in the ways that they organized themselves traditionally. For example, the community structuring or layering of the Inupiat was entirely different from that of the Tlingit and Haida. The Athabascans of the Interior tended more toward centralized authority, as did (for example) the Alutiiq and Aleut. While Chiefs and Second Chiefs relied on Elders Councils and others in their decision-making processes, they retained final control over the destiny of offenders, and the punishment was sometimes fierce. Banishment was common.

Source: Alaska Judicial Council

The failure of many Natives to understand how the court operates can also be attributed to cultural differences in the way the offender views him/herself. In traditional Athabascan law ways, for example, if someone were brought before authority figures for an offense, it was assumed by both the alleged offender and the rest of the community that the person was guilty. In other words, rather than starting a "hearing" under the presumption of innocence, it was initiated under the presumption of guilt. This adds to the confusion and misunderstandings that Athabascans — and other Alaska Natives as well — have about the Alaska judicial system.

(In the Western system] the defendant has the legal right to stand mute in the proceedings and to examine the evidence of prosecution and official conduct with respect to him. This is quite different from the traditional notion of meekly confessing and accepting punishment. Since his guilt in the eyes of the authority figures in the court may seem to the defendant to be a foregone conclusion, and since he does not understand adversarial dynamics, a meaningful consideration and waiver or assertion of his rights is difficult.

The Athabascan defendant probably does not expect that a verdict of innocent will be the result of the proceedings. His aim is to mollify the authority figures by agreeing with them and thus appease their anger. Effectively, this means he will waive his rights to obstruct the official inquiry. Thus, he attempts to extricate himself from the criminal process by the traditional and expedient means of agreeing with everything, waiving his rights, and assuming that whatever the judge metes out as punishment will be just.

There is a prevalent misunderstanding or misconception on the part of many non-Natives that only by administering "Western justice" will there be justice, and this perspective is ultimately deleterious to the pursuit of alternative dispute resolution strategies at the village level. Moreover, the issue of imposing the prevailing law on residents of a community seems to have been blown out of proportion: with the state government focusing attention on "tribal sovereignty" and largely denying local control because of its inherently leading to more of that "sovereignty" that they wish to deny the federally recognized tribes, the fundamental issue of local dispute resolution has been put aside.

The Commission acknowledges and appreciates the fact that it is a rare Alaska village that has only Native residents; yet the non-Native residents of the village are members of that community, and their voices will inevitably be heard in the establishment of any local judicial (or alternative dispute resolution) process. Although the Commission has been empowered, even by its title, to consider the Policies and Programs Affecting Alaska Natives, it cannot do so without including the non-Natives of the bush. The question that must be answered regarding the imposition of village law on the residents of the village is not whether it is "Native law" (i.e., tribal) or "non-Native law" (i.e., non-tribal) as much as it is simply village law. If a community decides to pass an ordinance banning behavior that its members find to be offensive and detrimental to its continued existence, that is its right, whether that community is Podunk, Michigan, or Akhiok, Alaska. Once passed, that community should have not only the right but the legal authority to: (a) enforce its ordinance; (b) charge those who have been found by official law enforcement officers not to be complying with the ordinance; (c) bring those so charged before a court of law; and, (d) impose a "sentence" that is consistent with the judicial and "correctional" systems of the village. The community should also have the right to construct alternative procedures for mediation, arbitration, and reconciliation far beyond the extent to which those avenues are accessible via the State of Alaska's judicial system.

The provision given by state statute that villages can exercise the "local option," by voting for a prohibition against any alcohol at all in the village, importation and use but no sales, etc., though obviously flawed, demonstrates only one first phase of that important process of enabling villages to set their own controls. In very few communities — there are some — the later stages of the process are also in place. It is those villages, small in number, that need to offer their programs for wider distribution for the benefit of rural Alaska Natives throughout the State. It is precisely in those villages, however, that many community members are afraid to expose their way of handling justice to a larger audience, simply because their methods would probably be found to be "illegal" by the prevailing Western system and consequently banned by that system.

The Commission heard testimony from individuals asking that new programs and policies be established to enable communities to devise locally relevant and appropriate means of resolving conflicts and disputes. The following was offered by Mr. Jim Christensen, Director of the Department of Public Safety for the North Slope Borough. Referring to the aforementioned study conducted by the Alaska Judicial Council and published in Connors, et al., Resolving Disputes Locally: Alternatives for Rural Alaska, 1992, Mr. Christensen said:

I would like to recommend to the Commission that alternative methods of dealing with local disputes be explored. . . These methods of conflict resolution can assist communities where the State justice system fails. The method of using Elders from the communities as judges to resolve issues which might otherwise be bogged down or ignored in the State Judicial System merits further analysis. This appears to me to be an excellent technique of involving respected Elders who are sensitive to the cultural issues being faced by our youth in solving some of our community problems.

Removal of offenders from the local community may be a boon or a hardship, depending on the circumstances. At times, villages would prefer to have the offender out of the community, but under other circumstances, family members or the community may have equally compelling reasons for wishing the offender to remain. For example, if an offender has seriously harmed a villager, and especially if the offender has a history of disrupting the village, most may be happy to see the offender transported out of the community. On the other hand, if the offense was non-violent, or not directed against village residents, or if for other reasons — economic or personal — villagers regard the offender as less threatening or more desirable, they may not wish to have the offender removed.

The most common local dispute resolution methods and forms of punishment traditionally utilized by Alaska Natives were more communally supportive than those imposed on the most serious or repeated offenses, and they included an element that is missing from today's system of fines and jail time. It is, most importantly, reconciliation with the community.

c. Issues Related to Information and Education. Testimony and data both have shown that Alaska Natives encountering the Western judicial system often are neither aware nor apprised of the process in which they are involved. There are numerous stories of Public Defenders assigned by the court attempting to persuade a Native defendant to "cop" to a lower charge and then leaving the case to another Public Defender when the defendant resists. There are also stories, and impassioned testimony, from Native defendants who have traversed the circuitous and complex judicial process only to emerge at the other end, predictably in a correctional facility, not having the slightest idea what happened to them, what they were supposed to do, or why they are now in the fix that they are in. These examples of a system gone wrong speak to the issues of information and education about the rules, the manner in which those rules play themselves out for a Native defendant, choices that are — or legally should be — available to Native defendants, the probable outcomes of making those choices, and the ability to "fight the system" as many non-Native defendants do.

When fundamental Native ethics are brought into this picture, such as the basic tendencies to avoid confrontation and to tell the truth under any circumstance, the situation is predictably hopeless for most Natives involved in the system. In order to improve the situation, there must be more Native advocates and translators available to inform and educate Natives who are in the system. Non-Native government employees and attorneys need cross-cultural training to help enlighten them about the cultural traditions of Alaska's Native people and the ways these traditions and ethics influence their behavior today. These considerations are included in the Commission's recommendations.

d. Rural/Urban Influences. In concluding this section about problems and probable causes, the Commission calls to the reader's attention the acknowledgment that there are differences between rural Natives and urban Natives in Alaska and the kinds of problems that they are facing. Much of the attention of the Commission has been focused on rural issues because those have surfaced more loudly and more often in testimony obtained during hearings, most of which were held in bush communities. As the arrest statistics presented earlier showed, however, there are great similarities in the kinds of consequences of these problems, when it comes to offenses and arrests. Suggested solutions, such as alternative dispute resolution bodies and procedures, are not limited to rural villages. As has been found in the Lower 48 (e.g., in San Francisco), it is possible to establish alternative "community boards" that can both mediate between disputants and, in some manner, decide cases. The key to this in locations such as Anchorage and Fairbanks is to ensure that the boards or councils that are established to handle Native cases are composed of Natives from the community.

Thus, there are problems of rural Alaska that concern communities that are composed primarily but not exclusively of Native members; and there are problems of urban Alaska that concern Native communities living within the municipal boundaries. As the entire village must work together to protect its residents and to establish the means to resolve disputes between its members, so must the Native community within an urban area work cooperatively to protect its members and resolve their disputes. The methods used will naturally vary according to the composition, cultural traditions, values, and ethics of the Natives who make up the community; and due to the cultural diversity of the Native community in Anchorage, a collective, multi-tribal effort will be required to achieve success there.

Many issues revolving around village governance have been raised in hearings before the Alaska Natives Commission. Several individuals have spoken to the difficulties of maintaining a Tribal Council office with the absence of support that once was -provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Others have spoken to the problems of trying to interface with governments of cities and boroughs, both of which are layered on top of the older, more traditional forms of government. The issues that are specific to tribal governance and interactions with the state and federal government are discussed in a separate study of the Commission. At this point, the effect that these issues have on both the problems and proposed solutions related to public safety and law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and probation and parole are the focus.

There are several factors that are involved in the State's delegation of its authority to villages for the resolution of disputes, for any form of corrections, and for probation and parole (which, technically, is one aspect of corrections). These will be discussed briefly here.

In a review of different local dispute resolution assemblies, the Alaska Judicial Council listed the Village Councils (i.e., IRA Councils or Traditional Councils) shown in Table 6 as having Tribal Courts and/or being active in dispute resolution. Of the 218 villages surveyed, almost half had some form of local dispute resolution process in place.

Even with this relatively large number of "active councils," it is apparent from every other indicator that has been brought before the Commission that, although it appears that mechanisms are in place to resolve disputes at the village level without involving the state judicial process, they are not being used effectively. If they were, there would not be the kinds of imbalance in the data that are evident, as has been discussed earlier. The obvious probable causes of this seeming discrepancy between what could be accomplished locally and what practically is being accomplished are the state government's unwillingness to confer on village councils and courts the ability to handle local cases, and the continuing confusion and conflicts over tribal sovereignty, which imbeds even more deeply the State of Alaska's conviction that any release of its authority to village-level councils is a threat to the foundation of that authority. However, there are other possible causes which may not immediately present themselves. One may be a tendency on the part of village courts and councils to accept only the most minor of offenses, which might not reach the state judicial system anyway. Another could be the uneven involvement of village residents in these courts and councils, varying with the seasons of the year, subsistence activities, the presence of council and court members in the village. There is no doubt that there are wide variations between the villages and the extent to which they are active in the judicial process. There are local and regional differences in approach, with varying degrees of mediation and arbitration. As the Alaska judicial Council noted in its review, there is also an interaction with the Indian Child Welfare Act's implementation, with those more active in that Act consequently being more active at the court and council level. However, as imperfect or passive as any of these alternatives may be in their operation, one must acknowledge that they do exist. Thus, they offer a beginning point for change, at least in half the villages in Alaska.

Source: Resolving Disputes Locally: A Statewide Report & Directory, Alaska Judicial Council 1993

It is the position of the Commission that village councils, federally recognized tribes, and the state government should put their conflicts and concerns aside, designing and implementing local community dispute resolution bodies, policies, and procedures without engaging in the futile arguments over tribal sovereignty or loss of state authority. As mentioned earlier, it is essential the communities be more directly and clearly empowered to act to their own benefit in responding to certain offenses. The recommendations of the Commission speak clearly to this issue by stressing the importance of local control, whether or not that control would be considered tribal.

Until the State of Alaska can resolve to empower village-based groups and establish policies and procedures that determine objectively what offenses are within their "judicial" domain, the situation that now prevails and the problems that result from that system will continue unabated.

Simply stated, Alaska does not recognize Alaska Native tribal status, with the single exception of the Metlakatla Indian Community, which resides on Alaska's only official Indian Reservation. The Executive Branch of the current administration revoked an administrative order (No. 123) of the previous administration, which had acknowledged that many Alaska Native groups could qualify for tribal recognition under federal law (but had not yet been so recognized) and pledged to treat tribal groups as "official" tribes, even if they had not yet been formally recognized by the federal government. In countering the outgoing Governor's policy, the current governor established the policy that "the State of Alaska opposes expansion of tribal governmental powers and the creation of ‘Indian Country’ in Alaska" (Administrative Order No. 125). Because of the controversy and disabling discussions between the many different parties that are involved in this dispute and because of several court cases that are in process that will (or may) have a bearing on a final determination of the differences between the State of Alaska and tribal groups regarding tribal sovereignty, the Commission has elected to stress the importance of local community-based solutions, rather than "tribal" or "non-tribal" solutions. This has been, and will continue to be, a theme of this study and its recommendations.

In that light, the discussion will not dwell on tribal issues. But it must, to be fair, review one additional factor that is related to local dispute resolution, village courts, and village solutions to probation and parole. It is Public Law 83-280, known generally as "P.L. 280," which was amended by P.L. 85-615, the result of which was the extension of Alaska's state court civil jurisdiction to private civil causes of action involving Indians in Indian country. P.L. 280 states:

Among other debates that have raged over P.L. 280 are those related to the definition of "Indian Country" in Alaska and whether or not the jurisdiction of the State is exclusive or concurrent. The controversies and court cases that have resulted from them are generally well known, even if the issues behind them may be poorly understood. The Commission must acknowledge the importance of the court cases that will no doubt have a broad impact on the recognition of tribes in Alaska and their powers, if recognized. However, for the purposes of devising changes to policies and programs that have led to the situation that is the main topic of this paper — the over-representation of Alaska Natives among many different segments of those impacted by the public safety, judicial, and correctional systems in Alaska — the Commission seeks to put aside the questions raised by P.L. 280 and the issues revolving around Indian Country. Rather, the Commission looks to solutions aimed at establishing village-based communal powers and dispute resolution authorities, irrespective of the "tribal" nature of the solution, for if Alaska can agree to yield to reasonable public decision-making and can establish the jurisdictional boundaries necessary to establish a consistent authority within the village for resolving disputes at the village level, then the issue of "sovereignty" as a perceived threat to the state government is put aside. It is this approach that can be seen as the hallmark of many of the Commission's recommendations.

The time is right for the State to develop alternative punishment options both regionally and at the village level. The 1992 Annual Report to the Governor and the Alaska Legislature, published in December 1992 by the Alaska Sentencing Commission, made much the same recommendation:

For the growing urban Native population, alternative punishments are also possible. In Anchorage, for example, misdemeanants are often required to complete community service work; if such work were directed toward the improvement of geographical areas of cities in which Native communities dwell, it would be possible to strengthen the sense of those communities, while at the same time "punishing" the offender. In a sense, community service work in a Native community offers an opportunity for both restitution and reconciliation, both of which are traditionally strong motivators for Alaska Native people. By building self-worth and assuaging guilt and shame, the individual and his/her community are improved.

b. Lessened Intervention by the State. The State of Alaska should enter into formal agreements with each "Village Court" (i.e., the Council, court, or other dispute resolution body or individual established by consensus of the village residents) to determine which infractions or which classes of infraction will be the domain of the "Village Court" and which will be the domain of the state government. The Village Public Safety Officer should enforce all village ordinances as well as state statutes. Village ordinances will be routinely handled by the "Village Court," and the "Court" will establish by means of a memorandum of agreement which other statutes and ordinances are within its domain. In other words, the "Village Court" must be empowered to handle a broad variety of cases and infractions. It should, at the same time, have the ability to refer to district court or another level of the state's judiciary cases that would normally be within its domain but for one reason or another it cannot effectively try. One must appreciate that there are times in small communities that bring opposing families and/or factions together over a conflict and that the resolution of that conflict may best be achieved outside the community. In all other cases — and the decision must rest within the community — local resolution must prevail.

c. Changes in the Judicial Branch. The Commission acknowledges the complexities involved in modifying the judicial system of Alaska, since there are four tiers (i.e., the district court, superior court, court of appeals, and supreme court) with increasing powers and decreasing access to revision. The district court, at the Magistrate level, is the tier that currently impacts most rural Alaska Natives, and it is the most eligible for immediate change. Thus, it must be the "target" of reform that needs to be implemented quickly throughout Alaska. However, the State of Alaska must evaluate its entire judicial system, from the district court to the supreme court, relative to its incorporation of Alaska Native law ways and ethics; it must also pursue options and alternatives to the current system, returning dispute resolution and decision-making authority to Alaska Native villages and the Native communities that exist in the state's larger municipalities.

d. Village Dispute Resolution Bodies and Procedures. Village Councils should be encouraged to establish dispute resolution bodies and procedures that are consistent with the predominant tradition and culture of the village, and the state and federal governments should provide training and technical assistance to further this establishment. In this regard, the Commission cautions both state and federal officials to look carefully at the kinds of dispute resolution bodies that may be possible. The current trend for some consulting firms to advocate the replication of Western-style bodies and procedures under the guise of "Tribal Courts" may not fit the type of decision-making processes that are either traditional or extant within a village or region. Alternative mechanisms should be considered, including the use of Elders Councils, Chiefs, and other local authorities. The State of Alaska must enable the development of these mechanisms and processes at the local level without bringing to the table its concerns about "tribes" and "sovereignty," for the organization and empowerment of local dispute resolution bodies and procedures will encompass both Native and non-Native residents and must be endorsed by the majority of village residents, irrespective of their tribal affiliation. Erecting "sovereignty" as the reason why justice should not be carried out at the village level is a transparent defense, a facade at best.

The Commission recommends that the Tribal Court in Minto become the exemplary model for local dispute resolution bodies. The Minto Court, which has been studied and documented by the Alaska Judicial Council and others, fits within traditional systems of authority and decision making. In other parts of Alaska, both the court and its procedures would naturally have to be adapted to the local culture and traditions, but the essence of the system and the manner in which it has been able to co-exist with the state's judiciary should be replicated throughout Alaska, providing an alternative, locally controlled means to resolve disputes and engage in Native law ways that deliver true justice to community members.

e. Separation of Powers: A System of Distributing Authority. Over twenty years ago, the Bush Justice Conference sponsored by the Alaska Judicial Council pondered the same issues and proposed answers to many of the same questions that have been brought before the Alaska Natives Commission. Some of the recommendations that were proposed then are very obviously still valid; had they been implemented twenty years ago, many problems that now exist might have been avoided. The Commission will re-state some of these recommendations here:

The Commission echoes the recommendations of two decades ago, but it does so with a caveat. It may not be most efficacious for all villages or Native communities to empower a "council-like body" to perform the duties of a court. Rather, following traditional processes, in some Alaska Native communities a Chief alone could be so empowered; in other communities, it may take two groups to satisfy the traditional needs of the different families. The Commission does not want to gloss over the multitude of differences between the different Alaska Native groups or between the clans and bands within these groups, but it does want to state that the essence of resolving the many problems that have been created by the imposition of an alien, non-Native system in Alaska lies in the State of Alaska relinquishing its control over the judiciary to the point that reasonable local justice can prevail. That this is a unique solution that has not been attempted by other states should challenge executive, judicial, and legislative branches to blaze a new trail through the unmarked territory, in the best spirit of Alaska frontiersmanship.

f. Monitoring Change. In order to determine which alternative mechanisms for establishing and enforcing local ordinances are effective and capable of being replicated, the different solutions should be monitored over time, as both their numbers and types increase. The Commission recommends that the responsibility and authority to monitor the development and implementation of these state- and federally-supported efforts be assigned to an Office of Native Judicial Advocacy, to be created in the Governor's Office, with the status of the Public Defender's Office and the Prosecutor's Office. The Office of Native Judicial Advocacy should establish an impartial review group that will not only evaluate the progress of villages throughout Alaska in their local dispute resolution activities but also report the results of the evaluation to both the state government (e.g., the Legislature, Governor, Alaska Judicial Council, Department of Public Safety, etc.) and the federal government (e.g., the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of Justice, etc.). To ensure that the recommendations of the Alaska Natives Commission are followed, the Office of Native Judicial Advocacy should report back to the President, Congress, Governor, and Alaska Legislature on the progress made at one-year intervals for the next four years.

g. Changes in Corrections. The essence of corrections needs to be considered by all concerned parties as the first step in creating change and enabling local alternatives to the current system. As mentioned earlier, the purposes served by corrections include punishment, rehabilitation, and protection of society from dangerous individuals. To effect a change in the correctional system of Alaska that will improve the situation for Alaska Natives, both the legislative and executive branches of the state government will need to revise their perspectives regarding their conception of "corrections" and the ways in which these three purposes can be met. Punishment can, as recommended by the Alaska Sentencing Commission, be achieved through the use of alternatives to incarceration; and incarceration can be accomplished closer to "home," if appropriate means are provided regionally. Rehabilitation, many agree, is less likely to occur in a prison than out of one, and the means that have been established by the Department of Corrections fall far short of offering options for true rehabilitation, particularly when one considers the total absence of Native values and ethics and the fact that the majority of crimes for which Natives are incarcerated have been committed under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs.

The limited substance abuse treatment that is currently available within the correctional system appears, by all accounts, to be ineffective. Adding to the problem is the lack of halfway houses and other transitional living options that would better prepare those who must be removed from their home communities to return to those communities and engage in harmonious, constructive lives. The Indian Health Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, and the Department of Corrections must combine their resources and support the development and maintenance of halfway houses and other transitional and supportive living arrangements for Native offenders who can receive rehabilitative treatment at least regionally, if not in their own communities, and for incarcerated Natives who are in the process of returning home. These must be coordinated with treatment options within the correctional facilities, and all such programs should be developed and maintained by Native organizations, under contract to the federal and state governments. The Commission also supports the recommendation that the Alaska Sentencing Commission made to the Governor and Legislature in December 1991:

It is obvious that for intermediate sanctions such as halfway houses and inpatient treatment to be employed by the courts — or by village-based dispute resolution bodies they must be in place. It is incumbent upon federal and state agencies to fund Native organizations to open and operate such programs throughout Alaska.

h. Decentralized, "Local" Options for Corrections in the Future. Two types of local correctional options should be supported by the state and federal governments. The first was suggested by Mr. Jim Christensen, Director of the North Slope Borough Department of Public Safety in his testimony before the Alaska Natives Commission. It was to build a regional correctional facility to serve Barrow and the villages of the North Slope. Regional correctional facilities would enable those who must be incarcerated, due to the severity and/or repetitiousness of their crimes, to serve time closer to home, thereby making it easier for family and community members to maintain contact. As Mr. Christensen said,

In my opinion, Alaska Natives are being warehoused in correctional institutions which are too distant from their home communities. How can offenders participate in family counseling as treatment therapy when the family and offenders are separated by over 750 miles? How can those who are incarcerated in the current state correctional system stay in touch with their communities and loved ones and maintain their cultural identity? What do we really think the chances of successful rehabilitation of Alaska Native offenders will be after several years of no contact with their communities and extended families?

The Commission supports the efforts of local governments to establish regional correctional facilities, while noting that the trend in Alaska has been to reduce, rather than to increase, the number of facilities statewide even in the face of overcrowding that is so serious that many inmates have had to be transferred Outside. However, the Commission also recognizes that an essential question has been begged in Mr. Christensen's testimony, and it is perhaps that question which reaches to the heart of the problem: as a preface to his recommendation for a local correctional facility, Mr. Christensen said, "if we are going to operate within the state judicial system as it now exists," and the Commission recommends again that we do not continue to operate within the state judicial system "as it now exists." Rather, that system needs to be disassembled, its purposes re-analyzed, and new and better methods found to achieve its goals. Some of those methods include the second local correctional option, alternative punishment, which is the next topic of this study.

i. Alternative Punishment Community Service Options. As has been stressed, removing offenders from the community and incarcerating them are alien forms of punishment for many Alaska Natives because such responses are contradictory to Native cultural traditions, except in cases of unrepentant individuals and repetitive, extreme criminal acts. There are other options currently available to state government, and these must be further expanded. In its 1992 report to the Governor and Legislature, the Alaska Sentencing Commission opened its summary with the following:

All branches of state government should encourage the responsible use of alternative punishments for more felons and misdemeanants. Non-prison programs such as halfway houses, drug and alcohol treatment programs, community work service, fines and forfeitures, and restitution can be used effectively to protect the public, rehabilitate the offender, and provide appropriate punishment.

The Commission asks both the state and federal governments to develop alternative punishments that are consistent with the ethics and culture of the village or region in which they are to be implemented. These alternatives must be integrated with the alternative forms of dispute resolution that will also be implemented. In other words, the Commission is not suggesting that the judicial system merely provide alternative punishment as a replacement for incarceration in certain cases. Rather, a comprehensive new system must be developed that incorporates local, village-based dispute resolution bodies and procedures and alternative punishments based on traditional values and justice. Within this context, to ensure that the Native communities in Anchorage and Fairbanks are also included, the option of community service work should be offered routinely, with the work focused on strengthening Native communities and pursuing activities, such as helping the Elders and teaching traditional skills to children, that are consistent with Alaska Native culture.

The Commission further recommends that the State of Alaska support culturally based contract rehabilitation programs for Native offenders, both youth and adult. An example to be used in developing such programs is the former Social Rehabilitation Program operated by the Maniilaq Association in Kotzebue.

a. General. The unacceptable rate of probation and parole violations among Alaska Natives has been mentioned in earlier sections. The Commission submits that the statistics speak loudly to the unbalanced — in fact biased — policies of the state and federal systems that control the lives of Alaska Native offenders. For some, the choice to violate parole is made consciously. Mr. William Iyapana offered testimony to the Commission in March 1993 describing his plans to violate his parole: "I'm going to get out, and a month later, I'm going to violate so I can come back and do four months so I cannot be under Department of Corrections anymore. That's sad, but that's a fact I have to go through, you know." His point, which was also made by others, is that it is better to spend a shorter time in prison, in Mr. Iyapana's case four months, and be done with it, than a longer time on parole. The reasons are several, but, primarily because the current system forces relocation to the cities, it has been designed to fail for Natives.

Quoting from the testimony of Mr. Daniel J. Amarok, who is scheduled to be released from the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center in December 1993:

Why is there not a place, other than the two geographical locations [Anchorage and Fairbanks] in which, when the time comes for release, for those of us that come from the "Bush" are having to be dumped into this urban setting. Why is there not any POs [Probation Officers] up at Barrow or Kotzebue, Nome, Bethel, Sitka, or any of the numerous locations from where the majority of us Native prisoners are from? What scares me the most is for me to be set loose in a city of which I am not accustomed to, let alone know, and being expected to get a job, housing, food, shelter, and the likes and make it for a year's time... I am basically afraid to enter the mainstream, to be placed in this "foreign" setting, as I grew up in and lived the majority of my adult life in the small bush setting. I am also afraid I will fail . . .

The Commission feels that it is essential that state government develop alternatives to the current system of probation, parole, and mandatory release, enabling Alaska Natives to complete their time in their home villages. However, there is an even more urgent recommendation that precedes this. It is for the Department of Corrections to conduct an immediate review of the records of all Native inmates who are currently incarcerated as a result of violations of probation or parole. If an individual is found not to be dangerous, he/she should be released. If this is accomplished swiftly, it will relieve some of the pressure on Alaska's correctional system; it will also correct some of the imbalance that has been caused by the biases in policy. While that task is being completed, revisions in those policies can be made and new program alternatives developed.

b. Village-based Models. In its quest to envision village-based models that can be established as alternatives to having inmates released to Anchorage and Fairbanks only, the Commission asked the fundamental question: What is the purpose of probation and parole? Is it not to ensure the government that the individual is behaving "properly," with that term defined (loosely) as "engaging in socially acceptable behavior"? If the answer is yes, then is it not reasonable to entrust to the community to which the individual will return and in which he/she will hopefully remain — the power to define the "socially acceptable behavior" to which the individual is expected to adhere? Consistent with the recommended decentralization of the judicial and correctional systems, the village dispute-resolution bodies should have the authority to establish monitoring and assistance teams that will supervise a parolee or probationer in the village. As mentioned earlier, these functions could be performed with financial assistance, using a contracting procedure much like the Alaska Youth Initiative, but the Commission recommends that the formation and service of a community "Probation Officer Team" be carried out on a volunteer basis by community members.

c. Other Recommendations. In the analysis, considerations, and testimony taken and reviewed by the Commission, the basic issue emerges of the high rate of certain crimes committed by Alaska Natives. Although the source of the behavior must, at this point, be a topic of some conjecture, there is little doubt that the documented prevalence of child abuse and sexual abuse and the frequent cases of violent family dysfunction are to some extent causally involved. A case in point can be found in the testimony of Ms. Lottie Ahnupkana, who is serving a 20-year sentence for first degree murder:

My main concern is helping out the Native people. They talk about drugs, alcohol abuse, and so on; that's true too. Basically where it all comes from is from the family. Before I got incarcerated, I was raised in a family that was dysfunctional, where there was drugs and alcohol, and where there's abuse... I think we should look into the villages, do some counseling into the villages, Native counseling in there. That's where all the drugs and all the alcohol, the abuse, the sexual abuse, the rape is, in the villages. I've been through that before and I ain't going through it no more, you know. And when certain individuals, Native individuals, carry so much anger inside them, they hold it for so long and so long, until they explode.

The Commission strongly recommends the continuation of all programs aimed at reducing these problems within Alaska Native families and, furthermore, urges the expansion and addition of new programs to achieve this goal. As the Commission was producing this study, the Bureau of Indian Affairs issued a memorandum notifying the Alaska Area Office (and other Area Offices throughout the country) that a number of programs have been listed for elimination or drastic reduction. Among these are the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) grants, which have, over the last several years, provided limited but much needed funding for village councils to develop and implement prevention programs that help save families, offer parenting skills training, and assist in re-uniting families that have, because of abuse and neglect, been dissolved. The Commission asks both the federal administration and the Congress to prevent this reduction; rather than eliminating the ICWA grant progra