(Photo courtesy of Alaska Department of Corrections)
By Corinne Smith, Alaska Beacon
An Anchorage senator has proposed expanding the Alaska Board of Parole, and widening the range of experiences of its members, citing the board’s workload and importance of fairness and accountability in its work.
The parole board has granted far fewer people parole from state prisons in recent years. Since 2021, the board granted parole on average 25% of the time, with the other 75% denied or continued, according to a legislative audit last year.
According to the ACLU of Alaska, the board has released 79% fewer people and held 75% fewer hearings than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Advocates argue the high rate of denials is contributing to overcrowding and a sense of hopelessness, also contributing to higher rates of suicide. There have been at least 67 deaths in Alaska since 2020, with 17 reported as suicides.
Senate Bill 62 expands the board of parole from five to seven members, “to help address a substantial workload” and “process parole applications in a fair and accountable manner,” according to a statement by the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage.
“This precipitous decline in successful parole applications has created this climate of hopelessness,” Tobin said in an interview. “It has created this dynamic where people don’t know why they should be involved in treatment, why they should be trying to rehabilitate. And that, to me, is very concerning.”
Tobin said she frequently hears from concerned residents with family members who are incarcerated. “For every person who is behind bars, there are people outside who love them and who are concerned about their health and safety,” she said. Tobin said she wants to expand opportunities for parole, also because as a Christian she believes in redemption.
“Some folks have done terrible, terrible things, but that is not the whole of who they are,” she said. “There is an ability for them to be redeemed, and I believe that we should offer that path of redemption.”
The five-member parole board is appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and reviews applications for parole, which totaled 181 applicants last year. That review process includes whether they’ve taken part in educational and rehabilitation programs, as well as the person’s suitability for release, the nature of their offense, and behavior while incarcerated. The board also takes into consideration statements from any victims or their family members.
Parole can be granted for those who are elderly, or with a severe medical diagnosis, with some exceptions for serious crimes. The parole board sets conditions of release like terms for work, housing, and sometimes further behavioral health treatment.
The legislation would create selection criteria for the expanded seven-member board, and limit members to two five-year terms. Four of the seats would require certain licenses or expertise:
- one for a licensed physician, psychologist or psychiatrist;
- one for a victim of a crime, a family member of a victim, or member of a victim advocacy group;
- one for someone with expertise in addiction recovery; and
- one for a member of a federally recognized tribe.
The bill would remove the only current specific experience requirement for board membership: that at least one has experience in criminal justice. It would keep a provision that the governor appoint people “on the basis of their qualifications to make decisions that are compatible with the welfare of the community and of individual offenders” and who are able to consider “the character and background of offenders and the circumstances under which offenses were committed.”
The tribal affiliation requirement is aimed at addressing the disproportionately high number of Alaska Native people incarcerated — the largest ethnic group in state prisons, at 44% in 2024, Tobin said in the sponsor statement that accompanied the bill.
The legislation would also require the board of parole to submit an annual report on parole decisions, and reasons for granting or denying parole.
Advocates, including with the ACLU, have complained that the current board’s decision process for discretionary parole is opaque. A legislative audit last year found “the board was unable to provide specific reasons why its parole approval rate decreased.”
“It’s hard to know if you’re going to be a successful applicant for discretionary parole, if you don’t know how the board of parole makes their determinations and decisions and why someone might be denied parole,” Tobin said.
Chair says board follows law, considers each case individually
Tobin questioned Leitoni Tupou, the board chair, directly about some of these issues at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 26. Tupou has worked in Alaska corrections starting in 2000, and was appointed to the board in 2020. He’s up for another five-year term.
When asked about the decline in numbers of parole applications granted, Tupou rejected the premise of the question.
“Every hearing is an individual hearing,” he said, and noted higher approval rates for drug offenses and property crimes.
When asked about demographic data of parolees being removed from the parole board website, Tupou said that data was not required to be public under current law.
For medical or geriatric parole, there were no applications granted in 2024, according to state data.
When asked about these rates, Tupou said the board is confined to follow current law. “If the law allows the parole board the discretion to apply the law of mercy, I believe we can do that,” he said. “So my recommendation is we look at the current law when it comes to medical parole. Because there are times we’d like to release these folks, but our hands are tied. They do not meet the criteria set by the law to allow them to be released.”
He cited a recent case of a 94-year-old applicant for parole that the board denied.
“Can you imagine the kind of expenses that we spend to take care of this person?” he said. “At the same time we had to look at the seriousness of his offense. He committed one of the most heinous crimes. At the same time, what is he going to do? He’s 94 years old. But the laws basically tell us he’s not qualified. So as lawmakers, I think that is something that needs to be reviewed.”
Tupou told the committee more addiction treatment and rehabilitation programs would benefit people who are incarcerated, as there can be waitlists or lack of programs offered at certain facilities. In some cases, he says the parole board “continues” the application, to allow people time to get off waitlists and into those treatment programs.
“Because it appears to us, the only way we can help these folks is (for them) to participate in some programs,” Tupou said. “We cannot just let them be released to the community and have the parole officer in the community supervise them, without them being part of some kind of a program. Jobs are great, but programs (like) substance abuse treatment programs, sex offender treatment programs, mental health programs — those are the programs that have to be available for these folks to go to. And looking at the risk of them reoffending, the possibility will be less.”
After the hearing, Tobin said it sounds like “double jeopardy” for the parole board to put so much weight on the original crime, when someone has already been to trial and sentenced.
She also noted it costs the state to keep people incarcerated — at a cost of $202 per day — plus medical care, at the expense of other programs and services.
“The average cost is $75,000 (per person) per year,” she said. “I’m not saying that this is about cost containment and cost savings, but it’s all part of the conversation …. As we give money to our Department of Corrections to keep people incarcerated, we are making choices to not invest in other places, like pre-K (education).”
Tobin introduced similar legislation last year that failed to move out of committee. She said the bill this year scaled back some requirements for board seats, with feedback from other legislators. Those included requirements like a required seat for someone with a felony conviction that has been dismissed or sentence served, and limiting seats of former correctional employees.
Advocates argue more transparency will help avoid recidivism
The Reentry Coalitions of Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks support the bill, as well as the ACLU of Alaska.
Megan Edge, director of an ACLU project focused on prisons said the move to make the parole board process more transparent, and share decision making processes would also help better ensure support services and lower the rates of people reoffending, known as recidivism.
“Why are they recidivating? Because most people that are making parole, they’re excited to go home,” she said. “Did they have a substance use issue? Did they have a mental health issue? Was it a housing problem? Was it an employment issue? And we just need better data to understand why our recidivism rate is where it is at and how we can improve it.”
Alaska rate of recidivism – defined as when someone is paroled and then violates the terms of parole or commits a crime again — was almost half, or 47% of discretionary parolees and 67% of mandatory parolees over the last three years.
Edge emphasized that more representation on the board of people with technical and career expertise — in behavioral health and rehabilitation in particular — can help improve conditions of release. “So I think a properly functioning parole board should be looking at an applicant’s ability to be successful once they’re released, and so when they’re not successful, we would all be served better on knowing why people are failing,” she said. “It’ll make our communities safer.”
Expanding opportunities for parole helps unite families, she added, and lessens negative impacts on children especially. She said cultivating hope can also improve prison safety and conditions for inmates, and for staff.
“It’s sad. You hear the clink on the door, and you realize all these people are locked in there and like, it’s an impossible job,” Edge said, who also worked for the Department of Corrections under Gov. Walker’s administration. “So when you take that hope away from inmates, you’re making that a more toxic workplace for your staff. So there’s benefits for everybody when people have hope.”
SB 62 is being heard in the Senate State Affairs Committee with the next public hearing scheduled for Tuesday, April 8.
