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The Alaska Rural Justice and Law Enforcement
Commission, a federal commission appointed in the fall of 2004, is
currently hearing testimony and debating potential recommendations on
the future of rural justice and public safety in Alaska. One of the commission’s
subject areas, public safety, has been the subject of dozens of reports
in the twenty-five years since the inception of the Village Public Safety
Officer (VPSO) program. This article attempts to summarize the recommendations
of these previous studies and reports.
In reviewing these recommendations, the
reader should bear two things in mind. First, most of these reports have
been external program evaluations completed by agencies, universities,
and policy institutes, not by local governments or organizations. Accordingly,
some of the recommendations may suffer from cultural or institutional
biases. In addition, some of the recommendations may be outdated since
the reports span twenty-five years. Determining the usefulness of individual
recommendations will be up to the commission members and the public.
Overview
Since its inception, the most commonly
cited benefits of the VPSO program have been that it increases local control
and self-determination and provides basic public safety services in areas
of rural Alaska where they were previously lacking. Some reports have
praised the career ladder the program creates for Alaska Natives in the
public safety field (although employment as a VPSO is not restricted to
Alaska Natives) and the communication link it provides between villages
and state troopers. Others have highlighted the program’s focus
on overall public safety as opposed to policing, its minimal cost, its
cultural and regional flexibility, and its direct economic and employment
benefits to rural Alaska.
However, the same reports have identified
problems with what the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
at the University of Alaska has deemed the “burdensome concept of
the program”—a reference to the number of agencies involved
in administering the program, the poorly defined roles and responsibilities
of the various parties, and the competing visions of success held by the
Alaska State Troopers versus those of the villages and regional Native
nonprofit corporations. Other areas cited as problems have included personnel
selection, training, turnover, cost-effectiveness, and the view in some
villages that the VPSO is solely an agent of the state.
In the following discussion, some reports
are cited in particular. Others covering the same issues are listed in
the attached bibliography.
Personnel Selection
Village public safety officers are hired
through a cooperative arrangement that considers the input of the village,
the regional nonprofit Native corporation, and the Alaska State Troopers.
In the 1980s, Arthur Hippler from the Institute of Social and Economic
Research at University of Alaska Anchorage and Otwin Marenin from the
University of Alaska Fairbanks criticized the program for not attracting,
selecting, and retaining the most qualified personnel. However, since
then, most reports have praised the cooperative selection process. Many
reports also have urged the state to hire more Alaska Natives in criminal
justice and law enforcement positions.
Training
Over the years, dozens of reports have
recommended increased training for rural public safety officers. Two of
the most common training recommendations have been to increase individualized,
on-site training of VPSOs in their villages and to increase cultural training
of state troopers who serve rural Alaska.
The initial concept for the VPSO program
was outlined in The Village Public Safety Officer Program: A Conceptual
Design to Improve Law Enforcement and Public Safety in the Rural Areas
of Alaska in 1980. In the initial design, the Alaska Department of
Public Safety set up a system of specially-trained oversight troopers
who offered individualized VPSO training in each village each month. This
system of monthly visits was abandoned in 1985, only five years into the
program. Various reports, however, including at least two internal briefing
papers by the Department of Public Safety in 1992 and 1997, have stressed
the importance of ongoing, individualized training and urged the revitalization
of the oversight trooper program. According to the 1992 briefing paper:
The ideal situation would be to have each VPSO’s Oversight
Trooper provide a close on-site working relationship and make daily
telephone contacts that give the VPSO on-the-job-training, formal
training modules, and day-to-day guidance.
The need for cultural training of Alaska
State Troopers has also been a common theme over the past twenty-five
years. Numerous studies and reports, including the two internal briefing
papers noted above, have recommended increasing cultural training for
state troopers who serve rural Alaska. According to the briefing papers,
cultural training should include instruction on area traditions, ways
of living, “a historical and current perspective of tribal courts,
traditional and elected councils; how they interface with the criminal
justice system and what part the VPSO Program plays in relation to these
issues.” Outside Alaska, the International Association of Chiefs
of Police and commissions in Australia and Canada also have recommended
extensive cultural training for officers who serve in predominantly Native
areas.
Other training recommendations included in various reports have included:
- holding a second VPSO academy in Sitka so VPSOs do not have to wait
up to a year to receive training;
- increasing the training and number of VPSO Field Training Officers;
- offering additional training to local law enforcement officers (village
and tribal police officers);
- evaluating teaching modules for appropriate vocabulary;
- better integrating the academy and follow-up training;
- introducing Troopers to the villages they will serve before they
assume their duties;
- offering bilingual instruction;
- providing management training to village councils so they can oversee
law enforcement in an unbiased manner;
- working toward Alaska Police Standards Council certification of the
VPSO training academy;
- establishing a formal oversight trooper training course;
- pursuing cooperative training programs between police and employment
training agencies;
- offering courses in tribal justice systems to state policymakers;
and
- providing VPSOs with more training in probation, juvenile justice,
and other community-based services.
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Support
Virtually every report on rural justice
in the past twenty-five years has recommended that the state increase
its law enforcement presence in rural Alaska. In 1977, Lloyd Weinreb,
a professor from Harvard Law School, recommended that a constable regularly
visit every village in Alaska at least once or twice a month, without
a display of force, to enable people to seek him out. According to Professor
Weinreb, “[t]his is essential if the constable’s presence
is to be sought and accepted.” The same sentiment was expressed
in the original design of the VPSO program, which included stationing
two additional state troopers in each regional hub with the sole duties
of VPSO oversight and support.
Oversight troopers were to be experienced
officers with specialized training in issues commonly encountered by VPSOs.
They were expected to visit every village once a month to offer on-site
training and support to the VPSO and to provide a regular means of communication
between the village residents and the state. The recommended ratio of
VPSOs to oversight troopers in the original concept paper was seven to
one.
In 1984, Price Waterhouse conducted an Overall
VPSO Program Evaluation for the Department of Public Safety. One
of their recommendations was that, unless they were faced with a life-threatening
emergency, oversight troopers should only perform duties related to the
VPSO program. By FY86, however, the state had eliminated over half of
the sixteen VPSO oversight trooper positions, and the VPSO/oversight trooper
ratio had increased to twenty-three to one.
The 1992 internal Department of Public Safety
briefing paper recommended moving back to the seven-to-one ratio at an
estimated annual cost of $1,130,000. According to the paper:
Since there are not an adequate number of Oversight Troopers, VPSO
Oversight duties, for the most part, are now a secondary responsibility
for post Troopers sent into a village to carry out an investigation
or some other law enforcement function. These trips to a village are
generally short in duration and there is little time to concentrate
on each VPSO’s needs.
The paper commented that “the VPSO
Oversight duty is no longer the highly specialized assignment it was at
program inception” and recommended spending $20,000 on a formal
trooper oversight training course.
Other oversight recommendations over the
years have included:
- increasing the personal contact between troopers and VPSOs;
- making trooper responsiveness more evident to villagers;
- providing additional administrative staff and equipment to rural
troopers;
- adding troopers in the regional hubs; and
- increasing communication and interactions between troopers, community
leaders, and rural residents.
Turnover
In a statistical study conducted in 2000
of officer attrition in the VPSO program,
Turnover among Alaska Village Public Safety Officers: An Examination of
the Factors Associated with Attrition, Darryl Wood of the Justice
Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage found that VPSO attrition
rates from 1983 to 1997 averaged 55 percent, at least 10 times greater
than the attrition experienced by metropolitan police departments. The
average officer lasted less than one year.
Wood found that VPSOs were more likely to
quit if they were single, non-Native, younger, and dissatisfied with their
training. They were less likely to quit if they served in their own village
and had other police (village police, tribal police, or VPSOs) in the
village. Wood found no discernible statistically significant link between
officer turnover and lack of contact with oversight troopers, dissatisfaction
with equipment, officer stress, role ambiguity, mistreatment by the village,
or pressures associated with policing relatives.
One common recommendation to reduce turnover
has been to increase the career advancement opportunities of VPSOs. Previous
reports have recommended expanding the training and number of sergeant-level
VPSO Field Training Officer positions and establishing an annual VPSO/Municipal
Police Academy (MPA) Transition Course.
In 1989, the state offered a VPSO/Municipal
Police Academy Transition Course to twenty VPSOs. Three years later, the
1992 Department of Public Safety briefing paper urged the establishment
of an annual course, noting that three of the participants in the first
course became municipal police officers, one became a state trooper, one
became a fish and wildlife enforcement officer, and one became a VPSO
coordinator with a regional nonprofit corporation.
Another suggestion for reducing VPSO turnover
expressed in the 1992 and 1997 briefing papers was to increase the number
of specialized VPSO oversight troopers. According to the 1992 report,
“without consistent Oversight Trooper support, including training
and personal contact with each VPSO, as well as interaction with the leaders
of the community and local residents, the VPSO turnover problem will continue
or possibly worsen.”
Several studies have also commented on the
importance of village support for the VPSO program in reducing turnover.
In a 1989 report, Otwin Marenin at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
noted that VPSOs were more likely to remain in their position and carry
out their duties if there were strong political institutions in the village.
Other turnover recommendations have been
to:
- increase VPSO salaries;
- make health and retirement benefits commensurate with those for troopers;
- increase support and backup;
- build or improve office facilities and holding cells;
- raise allowable overtime;
- provide reimbursement for incidental costs;
- reintroduce the monthly VPSO fuel allowance;
- provide housing;
- offer stress-related support services; and
- create a VPSO retreat fund.
Communication
Numerous studies have highlighted the
importance of regular meetings between state, federal, and tribal officials
to improve coordination. For example, in 1979, in Alaskan Village
Justice: An Exploratory Study, John Angell of the Justice Center
at the University of Alaska Anchorage recommended creating regional guidance
committees for justice planning. These would meet regularly and involve
all branches of the justice system, tribal and rural governments, and
Native organizations.
Other recommendations in the area of communications
have included:
- establishing standardized systems for data collection;
- improving the collaboration and sharing of criminal justice information
and resources between federal, state, and local governments; and
- creating a standard system for informing village police and residents
about the resolution of cases involving the village—such as posting
probation and parole terms in a prominent place in the village.
Resources
Previous reports also have recommended
increasing the number and quality of holding cells and public safety buildings,
providing VPSOs with vehicles and trailers, building local SAFE houses,
and providing legal manuals to villages. In addition, the Alaska Criminal
Justice Assessment Commission recommended creating community partnerships
for probation and parole supervision and offering additional substance
abuse and sex offender treatment programs in villages and regional hubs.
Cross-deputization
In recent years, it has been argued that
cross-deputizing village, tribal, and state officers, including VPSOs,
could improve public safety in Native communities. According to the VPSO
Program Field Manual, one of a VPSO’s duties is enforcing local
ordinances. However, the authority of VPSOs to enforce local tribal laws,
as opposed to city or village laws, remains murky.
A number of bodies that have looked at rural
law enforcement have advocated cross-deputization. In 1994, the Alaska
Natives Commission recommended that village public safety officers should
enforce all village ordinances as well as state statutes. Both the Alaska
Commission on Rural Governance and Empowerment and Commonwealth North’s
Urban Rural Unity Study recommended that the state partner with local
governments and tribes in the distribution of law enforcement. The International
Association of Chiefs of Police and the National Congress of State Legislators
have recently supported the use of intergovernmental law enforcement agreements
between states and Indian tribes. In addition, eight states submitted
an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court last year in United States
v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193 (2004) supporting the use of cooperative law
enforcement agreements between tribal and state governments.
Local Control
Probably the most common observation regarding
rural law enforcement has been that the public safety system should incorporate
local control and self-determination—one of the cited benefits of
the VPSO program. In the original concept paper for the program, the Department
of Public Safety stated that the program
. . . could help to provide a mechanism to address local problems
. . . by the application of sanctions reflecting village norms and
conditions without entering the formal process of the State’s
criminal justice system.
In addition, according to the VPSO Program Field Manual, “the City
Manager, Mayor and/or Village Council, in conjunction with the [regional
nonprofit] Contractor, decide what the VPSO’s specific duties will
be.”
This focus on local control has been echoed
in virtually every study on rural law enforcement, including reports by
the Alaska Natives Commission, the Alaska Commission on Rural Governance
and Empowerment, and the Alaska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission.
Recommendations have included that criminal
justice agencies assess their operating procedures and resolve any conflicts
between local and state social control methods, that police incorporate
traditional values and follow community preferences, that Native policy
be based on self-help and self-determination, and that state and federal
governments encourage Native and local institutions.
In the past twenty-five years, there have
been hundreds of recommendations for improving the VPSO program and public
safety in rural Alaska. Some are likely flawed or outdated, others may
need to be revised, and still others may be useful in their original form.
Distinguishing usable options will require public input and engaged discussion.
The Alaska Rural Justice and Law Enforcement Commission will, it is hoped,
prove to be an effective forum for such a debate.
Justin Roberts, an Anchorage lawyer,
has been researching rural public safety as a consultant for the Alaska
Federation of Natives. |
