Commission data, DOC officials outline recidivism trends and reentry programs

Officials from the Alaska Criminal Justice Data Analysis Commission and the Alaska Department of Corrections briefed the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday on recidivism patterns and reentry efforts in Alaska.

Suzanne DiPietro, executive director of the Alaska Judicial Council, which staffs the Criminal Justice Data Analysis Commission, said the commission uses a statutory definition of recidivism that counts the share of convicted defendants who are booked into or return to a correctional facility within three years after release or the date of conviction, whichever is later. DiPietro told the committee the commission follows cohorts (people who became "at risk" during a three-month window) and then tracks each cohort for three years.

DiPietro said one cohort (convictions with at-risk dates Jan. 1–March 31, 2020) showed 56.9% of that group were booked into a correctional facility at least once within three years; across cohorts from 2015–2020 the average recidivism rate was 59.5%. She noted most recidivism events occur early: "Seventy-four percent of those who actually ended up recidivating by year 3 had done so already in year 1," she said. The commission also reported that cohort sizes fell from about 3,000 to about 2,000 beginning in 2019–2020 and that initial convictions in those later cohorts tended to be for more serious offenses.

DiPietro emphasized measurement limits: booking into a correctional facility is a system response and does not necessarily equal reconviction; victims' decisions, prosecutorial and law-enforcement practices, and pandemic-era operational changes affect the counts. She showed that recidivism measured by reincarceration yields higher rates than measures based on reconviction.

Travis Welch, director of Health and Rehabilitation Services at the Alaska Department of Corrections, told the committee DOC data show a longer-term downward trend in reincarceration. Welch said Alaska's unified corrections system handled just under 27,000 bookings in fiscal year 2024 (about 74 per day) and held almost 4,300 people at a point-in-time count referenced in the presentation. He said about 80% of the population have substance-use disorders and about 60% have mental-health issues; DOC reported just over 300 psychiatric inpatient beds and five subacute units.

Welch highlighted reentry and treatment strategies: partnerships with tribal organizations and universities, expanded furloughs to inpatient substance-use-disorder (SUD) providers (DOC had five people on furlough to an SUD inpatient provider during the presentation), a pilot CDL training program at Wildwood Correctional Center, apprenticeship-aligned carpentry and electrical training, and an ironworkers welding trailer program. He described a memorandum with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Community and Technical College to appoint a Director of Correctional Education to expand education and to pursue the federal Prison Education Program application.

Dusty Dumont, director of the Division of Pretrial Probation and Parole (DP3), described probation officers' dual roles of supervision and connecting people to services and said DP3 supervises about 3,300 people on probation and parole. Committee members asked for follow-up data, including breakdowns of returns to custody driven by technical probation violations versus new criminal convictions; DOC representatives said they would provide available detail offline.

The presentations stressed that recidivism measures depend on definitions and data sources and that declines in return-to-custody rates reflect long-term efforts, funding for reentry housing and diversion programs, and continuing partnerships with community and tribal organizations.

The committee took no formal vote on policy during the presentations.