Goose Creek Correctional Center, the $240 million prison facility located amid failed dairy farms on a lonely road in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, is shuffling more and more Alaska prisoners through their daily routines behind bars.
The facility is almost fully-staffed, and the inmate population fluctuates around 1,300, officials said. On Jan. 6, it housed 1,361 prisoners, fewer than its maximum capacity of 1,536. Among those walking amid the facility's white brick walls and grey concrete floors are criminals big and small -- convicted killers and low-level drug dealers, as well as inmates awaiting their next court date.
Prisoners began filling cells in mid-2012 after more than a decade of debate about the center's value and construction. Since then, Goose Creek has slowly filled as prisoners previously housed in Colorado flew home. About 30 Alaska prisoners remain out of state due to safety concerns and other reasons.
States prison population at 93 percent
Besides the immense cost of getting the facility operational, opponents have pointed to audits revealing that the daily cost of keeping prisoners in Alaska exceeds that of keeping them in Colorado. Officials say having prisoners closer to their families reduces recidivism.
Those same opponents and others have wondered whether Goose Creek will exceed its capacity. If that happens, the state will start sending prisoners to Colorado again.
But recently, the state's prison population has actually dropped a little, said Kaci Schroeder, special assistant to the commissioner of the Department of Corrections.
"For example, throughout December 2013, at the Anchorage Complex, there were more days where the prison population was below capacity than had ever been recorded in a single month previously. In fact, the year ended with the prisoner population overall at 93 percent capacity," Schroeder said in an email. However, this trend could easily reverse itself, she added.
Reducing the number of inmates who return to prison is a key priority for the department -- and for good reason. If Alaska's prisoner population continues to grow, the shiny new facility at Goose Creek will soon no longer be enough to ensure all of the state's inmates have cells.
Officials estimate that state prisons will be over capacity as early as 2016.
Goose Creek also made headlines since its opening for unruly inmate incidents. Still, Brandenburg said the prison's transition to full operations has been smooth. It's still 30 employees short but "staffed adequately for the number of prisoners we have."
Un-sentenced inmates down the road
Two Goose Creek units house pre-trial inmates yet to receive a sentence but who remain in jail because they can't afford bail or have no bail.
Bryan Brandenburg, the state's director of institutions, said officials were aware the new prison would have to house some of those "un-sentenced inmates." Goose Creek operates as a unified system; it separates the general population from offenders who may not be accustomed to spending days, months or years in confinement.
On Jan. 3, there were 357 pretrial prisoners, Schroeder said. The pre-trial beds at Goose Creek help alleviate overflow at the Anchorage Correctional Complex and the Mat-Su Pretrial facility.
Housing pretrial prisoners at Goose Creek rather than at Palmer Correctional Center -- a past practice -- has allowed the Department of Corrections to move towards making the Palmer facility down the road a purely sentenced facility, "which will be helpful for providing targeted programming to long-term sentenced inmates," Schroeder said.
Palmer Correctional Center is closer to the town's courthouse, but the prison was always intended to be a facility for sentenced inmates. So, it makes more sense to keep un-sentenced inmates at Goose Creek despite its distance from the court, Schroeder said.
Contact Jerzy Shedlock at jerzy(at)alaskadispatch.com. Follow him on Twitter @jerzyms.