Are there prisons in alaska

Prison Policy Initiative newsletter? Research Library? Prison gerrymandering? Recommended Reading:. Five ways the criminal justice system could slow the pandemic Quick action could slow the spread of the viral pandemic in prisons and jails and in society as a whole.

The "services" offered by jails don't make them safe places for vulnerable people Even in the best of times, jails are not good at providing health and social services. The most important statistics from our work on policing Racial disparities, bloated budgets, the criminalization of homelessness, and more. Is social distancing possible behind bars? It's even harder than on cruise ships or in nursing homes.

Contact us to request a meeting. The correctional center near Anchorage reported its first case of Covid in November. As of Monday, cases were considered to be active, Gallagher said.

Prisons are one of the most high-risk environments for the spread of infectious disease because prisoners cannot social distance and depend on the prison for health and safety. In mid-December, new cases in prisons reached their highest level since testing began in the spring, according to the Associated Press and the Marshall Project.

Their data also showed that one in every five state and federal prisoners in the US has tested positive for Covid As we walked through the facility, incarcerated people approached us, politely curious about why I was there. Usually this interaction goes differently: with wardens either bombarded with desperate pleas, or perhaps more concerningly, avoided out of fear of repercussion.

I learned Lapinskas kept an office in the middle of the prison, where incarcerated people could come to him directly with their thoughts and concerns. As a result, influential people would go to him to quell potential problems before they erupted.

Lapinskas told me everyone there was part of a community. Perhaps a strange community — surrounded by wire and walls — but a community, nonetheless. His job was to ensure this community was as safe, healthy and productive as possible. Normally, prison walls are barren or have only slogans about order, discipline and safety, but here the walls were adorned with original artworks created by residents.

There were sign-up sheets for addiction recovery support groups, which I learned were mostly peer-led. Incarcerated people at Spring Creek taught classes on moral reasoning. The lesson had an impact: a local newspaper reported that incarcerated people who had taken the course later asked prison staff for a room where they could cool off to avoid fights. Although many states, such as North Dakota and Oregon , are increasingly remodeling prisons, and doing exceptional work towards rehabilitation, this is uncommon.

While I was being held in a maximum-security unit at the federal detention center in Brooklyn, New York, nothing was offered to help us spend our time constructively.

At Spring Creek, it was inspiring to see these programs celebrated and led by incarcerated people. We went to the secure housing unit, often referred to as solitary confinement, where it is commonplace for people considered security threats to be locked up inside a tiny cell, often alone, near constantly. Sometimes, in solitary confinement, people start yelling when an official walks through, simply to vent frustrations or in a desperate attempt to have their unresolved grievances addressed.

Here, the mood was calm and routine. Spring Creek had made some unusual accommodations so that even the most unpredictable and volatile of the incarcerated people suffering from mental illness would not need to spend their time entirely alone in the secure housing unit, which exacerbates or creates mental illness and leads to astronomically higher rates of suicide than the general population.

Its residents could still watch TV in the common area and easily communicate with others, including staff. While certainly imperfect, this was light-years ahead of the norm. And yet, if deemed threatening or disruptive, those with mental health problems are often kept in solitary cells for 23 hours or more every day.

In the recovery unit, incarcerated people suffering from addiction lived together, resolving conflicts with one another in healthy ways, and often without staff involvement. Here, they worked together on goals such as achieving and maintaining sobriety, making amends for past harms and developing healthy relationships.