Alaska News

Anchorage Assembly passes emergency order to plug law enforcement gap

The Anchorage Assembly passed a rare emergency order Tuesday night that revised penalties for several minor criminal offenses, including violating conditions of release, after city officials said a newly enacted criminal justice reform bill left police briefly unable to enforce the crimes.

The reform bill, Senate Bill 91, became law on Monday with Gov. Walker's signature. The bill was designed to overhaul criminal justice works in Alaska and cut recidivism rates, in part through quicker court dates and shorter prison terms for nonviolent crimes.  

It was a sweeping measure that includes converting a number of crimes from misdemeanors, which could lead to jail time, into minor offenses and fines. But the moment the bill was signed, officials said Tuesday, Anchorage police were unable to enforce three types of crime — failure to appear in court, violating conditions of release and driving with a license that has been suspended, canceled or revoked, said city attorney Bill Falsey.

That means no punishment existed in city law for those three offenses for a brief period after the bill was signed Monday. Falsey said he wasn't sure if the gap created a serious problem, or how the city dealt with enforcement in the interim, but he described it as "a substantive thing that needed to happen."

He said city officials decided it would be cleaner to wait until Walker had signed the bill before confronting the issue.

Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has introduced a follow-up ordinance, set for a public hearing on the Assembly's July 26 agenda, to more thoroughly address the effects of SB 91 on city ordinances. That will include changing the penalty for underage drinking from a misdemeanor to a minor offense with a maximum $500 fine, documents show.  

This was only the fourth emergency order passed by the Assembly since 1977, according to Falsey.

Devin Kelly

Devin Kelly was an ADN staff reporter.

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