Alaska Village Police Training: An Assessment and Recommendations

Abstract

The nature and effectiveness of such traditional social control methods in Alaska Native cultures is difficult to evaluate because of their displacement by methods introduced by fur traders, the Revenue Cutter Service, and U.S. Marshals. Territorial and state police continued the practice of establishing in Native communities the justice models with which they were familiar. The Alaska State Police began to organize formal training programs for Alaska Native people who would serve as police officers in Fairbanks (1964) and Juneau (1965), with more extensive police training programs financed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Nome in 1966 and the U.S. Department of Labor in 1968 (conducted by the Alaska State Troopers).

Beginning in 1971, the Alaska Department of Public Safety received action grants from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) for the initiation of a broadly conceived program for developing crminal justice services in Alaska Native villages statewide — the Alaska Village Police Training program. A total of approximately $542,000 of LEAA was ultimately invested in continuing the program over a period of seven years (1971–1978). The present study evaluates the Alaska Village Police Training program over the seven-year period on program purpose and goals, program achievements and impacts, and program costs. A final section contains recommendations for future programs to improve training for Alaska police in rural villages. Of 292 people trained since the program's inception, only 70 were still serving in their villages as of late 1978.