Sitting in a hard plastic folding chair among other members of the Northeast Anchorage Community Council last month, Carla McConnell asked the city's top state prosecutor if more could be done to combat heroin use and crime associated with the drug.
"I really feel that the spike in crime in Anchorage is related to heroin," McConnell said.
Anchorage District Attorney Clint Campion said he agreed that heroin was likely a driver of crime in the city. His office has an ongoing initiative to try and handle probationers differently, he said. Among other efforts, his office is attempting to more easily identify chronic heroin addicts who go through the criminal justice system. The most severely addicted defendants could be transferred from a jail bed to a treatment facility, or seek treatment in Alaska Department of Corrections facilities. Campion admitted the options wouldn't be popular due to the state's diminishing budget.
Campion's visit with the community council was part of an ongoing effort by the district attorney's office to better connect with the public, particularly with groups who are already engaged with what's happening in their own neighborhoods.
He and other district attorneys have visited more than half of the 38 community councils in the Municipality of Anchorage. The visits will continue through April.
The main reason for the visits is to make sure Anchorage residents understand what their local state prosecutor's office does, as well as its limitations. Campion said he also wants to establish partnerships with various organizations.
"The overarching theme here is that we have fewer prosecutors than we did five years ago," Campion said. "We're down, so we need to be smarter about how we prioritize our cases and our resources."
A total of 29 prosecutors at the Anchorage district attorney's office handle thousands of cases each year, Campion told the members of NECC. In 2011, there were 36 prosecutors working there, he said. The office is also responsible for court cases originating in the Aleutian Islands, Bristol Bay and the Pribilof Islands.
Campion said the majority of people he has successfully prosecuted, even some murder defendants, will come back to the community at large. Encouraging others to step up and help reintegrate some of those individuals is central to reducing recidivism, he said.
"We have fewer prosecutors. We don't have any less crime, so we're trying to figure out what our priorities should be. What are your public safety priorities?" he asked the small crowd.
The Muldoon-area residents had a handful of gripes, though many were municipal issues, Campion said, explaining that the city is usually responsible for things like homelessness and evicting rowdy neighbors, as well as some other, more nuanced problems.
Campion still encouraged the council to report smaller infractions that affect the neighborhood, however. He said state prosecutors can use those reports to aid in prosecution and probation decisions.
Assembly member Pete Petersen, on hand to give an update on proposed marijuana regulations for the city, raised a concern voiced earlier in the meeting: There are fewer people who get busted for drunken driving with red stripes on their licenses in Anchorage compared to Fairbanks. (The red stripes prevent people from buying alcohol.)
Campion said there was a disconnect in Anchorage courts. Judges here weren't routinely imposing the requirement to get a license with a red stripe, or offenders were simply using a second identification card. To alleviate the problem, probation officers now have the authority to tear up any ID that doesn't have the red stripe, he said.
While Campion addressed the group on the east end of town, assistant district attorney Jenna Gruenstein spoke to members of the South Addition Community Council in downtown Anchorage. She echoed the mission stated by Campion.
"Our emphasis was we really want to work with them, to do things differently and more partnerships between us and them. There was a lot of historical knowledge in that room," Gruenstein said in an interview after the meeting.
Lines of communication have been opened due to the meetings, Campion said. He said he expects to follow up on many of the issues his office hears about as the effort moves forward.