The Alaska Department of Law Office of Special Prosecutions (OSP) and the Alaska Justice Information Center (AJiC) partnered to answer two questions regarding police officer use of deadly force. First, to what extent existing OSP investigative casefiles could be used to fully describe the nature of uses of lethal force incidents in Alaska. Second, to describe lethal use of force incidents using the available information. We found that while OSP casefiles files contained sufficient information for OSP’s purpose of determining whether criminal charges are warranted under the circumstances, the OSP casefiles lacked some information of interest to policymakers and the public. AJiC analyzed all OSP casefiles involving officer uses of lethal force from 2010 to October 2020, covering a total of 92 incidents, 100 citizens, and 295 officers. Just over half of citizens died as a result of the incident in which deadly force was used, with another quarter sustaining serious injuries. Nearly every citizen involved displayed or used a weapon. No human officers were killed in the incidents reviewed, but two police dogs were killed, and three officers were seriously injured. Over a third of incidents involved the citizen making statements indicating they wanted to commit suicide-by-cop, and over two-thirds of incidents involved a citizen exhibiting some indication of mental illness during the incident. A third of incidents involved a citizen who had consumed alcohol, and methamphetamine/amphetamine was the most common drug other than alcohol, involved in more than a quarter of incidents. We offer the following recommendations for data collection based on our project: 1. The State of Alaska should develop a comprehensive statewide data collection regarding police officer uses of lethal force housed at an agency that can compile and use the information to drive policy. 2. OSP casefiles can serve as a starting point for data collection, but OSP case files cannot be the sole data source. 3. The development of a comprehensive data collection platform should include mandatory standardized data elements, starting with the FBI’s National Use-of-Force Data Collection Elements. 4. Other data elements should be considered for inclusion by a broad group of stakeholders from inside and outside of the criminal justice system. 5. Detailed use of lethal force incident data should be public where possible — but that may not always be possible or advisable.

This report provides a workload-based staffing estimate for the Alaska State Troopers C Detachment sworn staff, including troopers and court service officers. The report begins by examining incidents serviced by C Detachment for meaningful changes over years, seasonal variation, and variation by incident type. Next, we describe challenges of creating a workload- based model for staffing C Detachment, followed by summaries of interviews with sergeants in C Detachment and a description of C Detachment’s stated goals. The model is specified next, including a post-by-post staffing recommendation for C Detachment based on the 75th percentile of the number of reports, adjusted for leave and other factors.

This fact sheet presents data on criminal case filings in Alaska trial courts for fiscal years 2007–2018. From FY07 to FY18, misdemeanors filed in Alaska trial courts decreased while felonies filed increased. The majority of the increase in total felony filings came from violent, property, and weapons cases. The majority of the decline in district court cases is due to declining filings in public order, DUI, and other motor vehicle cases. Data are drawn from annual reports of the Alaska Court System.

This fact sheet presents data on drug possession arrests by type of drug and sex of arrestee as reported by Alaska law enforcement agencies for the 32-year period 1986 to 2017. Types of drugs include narcotics, synthetic narcotics, marijuana, and other non-narcotic drugs. Overall, males comprise roughly four out of five drug possession arrests in the state of Alaska. The female and male rates parallel one another in that they rise and fall at the same points in most years. In 2002, the synthetic narcotics and other non-narcotics possession arrest rates sharply increased for both males and females until the mid-2000s before a sharp decline and subsequent increase. Marijuana possession, the offense with the highest arrest rates, peaked at 90.4 per 100,000 female residents and 324.9 per 100,000 male residents. Synthetic narcotics possession, the offense with the lowest arrest rates, peaked at 13.8 per 100,000 female residents and 29.8 per 100,000 male residents. Narcotics possession is the only offense that peaked before 2000. Data is drawn from the annual Crime in Alaska report of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, which represents the State of Alaska's contribution to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) program.

This fact sheet presents data on drug sale possession arrests reported by Alaska law enforcement agencies for the 32-year period 1986 to 2017. Overall, the drug possession arrest rate plateaued be-tween 1998 and 2010, consistently declined from 2010 to 2016, and slightly increased in 2017. The lowest recorded overall drug possession arrest rate was in 1990. Rates increased from 1986 through 1998, then de-clined for all populations from 2010 to 2016. The adult and male populations drive the overall trend in arrest rates, accounting for roughly four out of every five arrestees during this 32-year period. The trend shows less discrepancy in arrest rates be-tween males and females, as well as between adults and juveniles after 2010. Data is drawn from the annual Crime in Alaska report of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, which represents the State of Alaska's contribution to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) program.