UAAJC Occasional Papers
UAAJC Occasional Papers is an occasional paper series of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage.
Recent Submissions
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Moving Beyond Brands: Integrating Approaches to MediationMediation has become a competition among brands vying for distinction based more on market concerns than genuine difference. This is not a positive development for a professional field of endeavor. Mediation has much more to offer than competing claims of superiority that attempt to deride and disparage the competition. This article, which is written from a sociological viewpoint, challenges these claims and suggests that the mediation community should develop instead a broader integrated approach to mediation that is pragmatic, flexible, open-source, and based on a robust theoretical foundation.
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Revisiting Alaska's Sex Offender Registration and Public Notification StatuteThis paper provides a look at the parameters of the Alaska’s sex offender registration statute. At the time of its enactment in 1994, the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act was one of the most stringent in the U.S., far exceeding the miniumum requirements imposed on the states by the federal Jacob Wetterling Act. The federal Adam Walsh Child Protection Act, signed into law in 2006, has the net effect of bringing all the states closer to Alaska’s registration and publication requirements. However, Alaska’s statute and its federal counterpart were based on assumptions about sex offender recidivism and the effectiveness of sex offender treatment which are contradicted by much of the research conducted since creation of Alaska’s sex offender registry. Empirical evidence also shows that Alaska’s sex offender registration and notification system and others like it do not demonstrably serve their stated purpose of increasing public safety. The severity of the registration requirements may prohibit the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into the community, and the increasing burden on law enforcement to monitor and maintain very broad registries may prevent police from focusing on the more serious sexual predators.
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The Hidden Impact of a Criminal Conviction: A Brief Overview of Collateral Consequences in AlaskaCollateral consequences, a term used in this paper to refer generally to the effect of any measure that might increase the negative consequences of a criminal conviction, fall roughly into three categories: impaired access to, or enjoyment of, the ordinary rights and benefits associated with citizenship or residency, such as voting or driving; impaired economic opportunity, primarily through reduction of the range of available employment; and increased severity of sanctions in any subsequent criminal proceeding brought against the offender. These indirect but significant consequences of a felony or misdemeanor conviction are receiving increasing attention from policy makers, ethicists, and the bar. Setting aside issues of constitutional or statutory rights, the growing web of civil disabilities triggered by a criminal conviction raises fundamental questions about what makes sense as a matter of public policy. This paper examines policy considerations of collateral consequences and provides a preliminary effort to list all of the provisions of Alaska state law that may diminish in some respect the opportunities available to an individual with a criminal conviction in his or her background.