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publication of the Justice Center |
Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Center |
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The “war on drugs”
has led to an enormous increase in both the numbers and percentages
of inmates in the federal system incarcerated primarily for drug
offenses (Table 1), but to less of a proportional increase in
similar imprisonments in the Alaska state system.
The inmate population sentenced
for drug offenses is now almost 60 per cent of the total federal
inmate population. Between 1985 and 1998 the number of federal
inmates sentenced for drug charges grew by nearly 500 per cent.
The Alaska Department of Corrections
does not show such a precipitous rise in the numbers or percentages
of inmates sentenced primarily for drug offenses.
In December 1985, out of the total
inmate population of 2124 reported in the corrections data base,
105, or 5 per cent, were sentenced on a drug-related offense
as the primary offense (Table 2). (Corrections became a separate
state department in 1984; before then it was a division within
Health and Human Services. The data base from which these figures
were taken was put in place in late 1983.) By the end of 1999,
the total DOC inmate population, including that in community
residential centers, was 4077. Of these, 247—6.1 per cent—
had a controlled substance charge as the primary charge. (These
figures do not include those imprisoned on a parole or probation
violation which was itself a drug offense, so they are undoubtedly
somewhat low.) While the percentage of prisoners in the Alaska
system on drug charges has grown only slightly, the actual number
has increased by more than 135 per cent, paralleling the climb
in the overall DOC population.
