I want to personally thank our legislators who were smart enough to restrict the $16.6 million they appropriated to reopen and restaff Palmer Correctional Center. The appropriation was restricted so the funds could only be used to reopen and staff PCC. Without the restriction, they realized Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Commissioner Nancy Dahlstrom would subvert those funds and send Alaskan inmates back to “crime school” at some private prison outside.
Now Commissioner Dahlstrom will actually have to try to recruit correctional officers. The Department of Corrections currently has about 30 fewer correctional officers than it did when the Dunleavy administration took office. Commissioner Dahlstrom has publicly admitted DOC is currently short more than 90 COs. DOC currently has openings listed on Workplace Alaska, the state job service. Listing openings is not recruiting.
In 2019, both Alaska State Troopers and the Anchorage Police Department were short of officers. They both actively advertised and recruited for new officers. Both campaigns were successful. It is past time for Commissioner Dahlstrom to create a dedicated recruitment/hiring team. It is also past time for her to implement an effective and funded advertising campaign.
Commissioner Dahlstrom has had funds to reopen PCC since early August and has sat on them, doing nothing with them until now, in January. I believe she has realized our legislators will not fund her agenda to send Alaska inmates outside to a “crime school” or “warehouse.”
I am a retired 32-plus-year Alaska correctional officer. I served at Wildwood Correctional Center from 1984 until 2017.
Alaska DOC previously had prisoners held in private prisons from 1994 until Goose Creek Correctional Center was completed in 2013. I saw the changes and relief in our Alaska inmates when they returned from years at the private prison “crime schools” where they had been “warehoused.” They were relieved to be back where they were treated as human beings. They had all been changed by their private prison experience, none of it for the good.
Again, a very heartfelt thank-you to our legislators for having the intelligence and spine to thwart Gov. Dunleavy’s and Commissioner Dahlstrom’s agenda.
— Bill Parker
Soldotna
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