This paper traces the history of the bush justice system in rural Alaska, describes the relationship between traditional Alaska Native dispute resolution mechanisms and the state criminal justice system, and analyzes bush justice research between 1970 and 1981 and its effects on state agency policies and changes in the rural justice system. Innovations by researchers were well-received by villagers and field-level professionals, but not by agency policymakers. Hence, most reforms made in the 1970s had vanished by the early 1980s. The author concludes that further reforms will be ineffective unless Alaska Natives are drawn into the decisionmaking process as co-equal players negotiating on legal process from positions of power.

Autonomous prisons in the nineteenth century were often inefficient and highly political. Many state legislatures and governors attempted to move toward centralized control of their state facilities. In the twentieth century the Federal Bureau of Prisons was seen by the Wickersham Commission as a model for institutional centralization. Consolidation of all correctional services was recommended by the National Advisory Commission in 1973. Today only a few states – Alaska, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Vermont – have fully unified adult correctional systems; each is described.

Prison discipline received considerable attention from both the courts and professional organizations during the decade of the 1970s. It was widely assumed that the due process requirements which resulted from judicial review coupled with the promulgation of model discipline standards and procedures would limit the broad discretionary authority found in the traditional prison disciplinary process. A case study of the activities of one prison discipline committee suggests that these external pressures have had less impact on decision-making than such internal pressures as overcrowding. Due process requirements have not greatly inhibited the exercise of discretion in the prison discipline process.

The Interstate Compact for the Supervision of Parolees and Probationers is an agreement whereby one state agrees to provide supervision for offenders on community release from other states. Participants in the interstate compact agree that any state will accept supervision of a parolee or probationer providing the offender has proper residence either as a resident of that state or with family, and that he/she is able to find employment. Major increases in Alaska's prison population over the past decade have been accompanied by corresponding increases in the number of persons under probation/parole supervision and in the caseloads of individual probation officers. Using a master listing of all persons under the jurisdiction of the Alaska Department of Corrections from 1976 to 1983, the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage made a preliminary assessment of the impact on Alaska of participation in the Interstate Compact. From 1976 to 1983, Alaska processed 1,551 offenders through the Interstate Compact, of whom 999 were received for supervision from other states (64.4% of the total) and 552 (35.6%) were sent to other states. Based on this data, the interstate compact has not yet been an equitable arrangement for any city in Alaska: each city has seen a greater number of incoming than of outgoing transfers.

Based on empirical evidence that visiting is significantly related to parole success, several authorities have encouraged correctional institutions to maximize visiting opportunities. Previous studies have noted geographical and architectural limits to such maximization. A decade of prison construction should have improved visiting opportunities. This paper reports the results of a national survey of visiting policies and draws comparisons with surveys reported in 1978 and 1954.

A survey of Alaska corrections personnel reveals that employees in all classifications tend to have more than the minimum education or experience required for their positions. More than 75 percent of college-educated corrections personnel earned degrees and more than 40 percent acquired their experience outside Alaska. The advantages and disadvantages of hiring large numbers of employees whose education and experience were gained elsewhere are discussed in the context of the unique problems of correctional service delivery in so large and diverse a state.

In 1973 the National Advisory Commission on Standards and Goals recommended that correctional services be consolidated under a single state agency, arguing that cost efficiencies, improved communication, and greater employee professionalism would result. The National Advisory Commission advocated state rather than local control of probation, and executive rather than judicial branch control of probation services. It encouraged development of regional rather than local jails and recommended that states assume the operation and control of all local detention and correctional functions. This paper examines some of the arguments for consolidation of correctional services and attempts to determine the kinds of reorganization that have occurred since 1973.

From the 1931 Wickersham Commission through the 1967 President's Commission and the 1973 National Advisory Commission, criminal justice experts and observers have recommended that state governments assume responsibility for jail operations. Currently six states operate jails: Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont. An examination of jail operations in these states shows that history and tradition as well as geography and politics form the impetus for state assumption of jail operations.