The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica are investigating sexual violence in Alaska and why the situation isn’t getting better. The project, part of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network, is looking at rural and urban Alaska along with potential solutions. We’ll publish more stories in this series through 2020. Sign up for our newsletter to get notifications when new articles are published.
More than a third of Alaska communities have no local police of any kind. Criminals have been hired as cops in some remote villages. A federal emergency has been declared and millions of dollars are promised, but here’s what else experts recommend.
Alaska public officials, law enforcement and village residents offer their specific suggestions for improving public safety.
After reading that Savoonga officers don’t have bulletproof vests, guns or even Tasers, an Iowa officer reached out to help.
Many remote Alaska villages have no law enforcement at all. But state troopers can be found in some wealthier, mainly non-Native suburbs, where growing communities have resisted paying for their own police departments.
Days before his death in 2005, Simeon Askoak told officials how a key Alaska rural policing program was broken. His village hasn’t had another permanent cop since.
A tiny Alaska village got a police officer. He’s never had to make an arrest. Meanwhile, larger communities with more crime have often been left behind as the state’s two-tiered policing crisis gets worse.
The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica have teamed up to listen. Do you work with victims, in government or law enforcement? We need to hear from you, too.
Anna Sattler’s rape kit sat untested for almost 20 years as Alaska’s backlog got worse. Now, an ex-Iditarod musher faces charges, and she’s speaking publicly about the attack for the first time.
In one village, every cop has been convicted of domestic violence within the past decade, including the chief. Only one has received formal law enforcement training of any kind.
Long before city officials said they had no choice but to hire criminals as cops, justice was elusive in the Norton Sound village of Stebbins and neighboring St. Michael.
The seven officers in Stebbins explain their criminal records and what it’s like to serve as a police officer there.
A first-of-its-kind investigation by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica found more than 70 Alaska communities — places with some of the highest rates of sexual assault in the U.S. — have no local police protection.
Attorney General William Barr embarked on a four-day swing through Alaska to learn about unique public safety challenges facing remote villages without local law enforcement.
These stories inspired our Lawless series and spurred us to dig deeper into systemic issues surrounding sexual violence and policing in Alaska.
The rape and death of a 16-year-old girl reveal how criminals can sometimes become cops in remote Alaska communities. The Daily News has found that villages have hired a registered sex offender, felons and other convicted criminals for police jobs in violation of state hiring requirements.
The names of village police officers across Alaska — even the number of officers — is a mystery. Here's why.
“One thing I’m not going to be doing is being quiet,” said the 911 dispatcher, whose complaint comes at a time of upheaval and demotions within the department.
She is 21 years old. She says he wasn't the first man to rape her and get away with it.
