Unheard
Alaska has the highest rate of sexual assault in the nation. These women and men did not choose to be violated, but they now choose to speak about what happened.
For decades, she blamed herself for the abuse. Writing her story was an act of survival. Publishing it was an act of rebellion.
From early childhood, Tia Wakolee believed she was at fault for being repeatedly assaulted. Then she began to chronicle her abuse on index cards arranged on her kitchen table and decided to share her truth.
Her addiction landed her in a prison segregation wing. The man she says abused her lives free.
Ricki Dahlin turned to a life of crime and drug addiction after being sexually abused as a child. “We’re broken. We’re trying to fix ourselves.”
Her attacker was stopped in the act and arrested, but this assault was only the beginning of her trauma
Everything Mary Savage did in the hours after the attack was dissected on the witness stand, an experience so upsetting she vomited. But years later, she finds comfort knowing her testimony led to his conviction.
‘They were the authority and I didn’t argue with authority’
In an era before rape kits, Sue Royston decided to fight for justice even though the police doubted her, the prosecution discouraged her, and those around her dismissed her story.
The teacher who returned to the rural Alaska village where she was abused is not staying silent
“I’m not going anywhere.” Marie Sakar tried to treat her trauma with alcohol until she learned that silence only serves to protect those who hurt her. Now, she’s back, sober and teaching in her hometown.
She was trapped at sea alone with her assailant. He told her, ‘You’re mine for the week.’
Nearly seven years ago, Cathleen stepped on a fishing boat expecting a week of hard work and good pay. Within hours of leaving shore, the captain began to touch her.
A Western Alaska school district repeatedly dismissed allegations against a principal. Then an FBI agent pretended to be a 13-year-old girl.
The principal for one of Alaska’s largest rural elementary schools, in a region with some of the highest sex-crime rates in the nation and a state with a history of failing to protect students, was allowed to remain on the job until the FBI got involved.
'Lawless’ series wins Pulitzer Prize for Public Service
The series, reported in partnership with ProPublica, is an examination of the failures of the criminal-justice system in rural communities across Alaska.
Can Alaska’s VPSO program be saved? A task force suggests big changes.
State legislators will propose giving village public safety officers more flexibility and independence.
Six ways to fix Alaska’s law enforcement crisis
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.
We found 14 villages that hired criminals as cops. Here’s what the state is doing to change that.
The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica found small Alaska cities have employed police whose criminal records should have prevented them from being hired. Now, the state board is working to ensure they meet basic hiring standards.
Here's what Alaskans suggest could fix the state's policing crisis
Alaska public officials, law enforcement and village residents offer their specific suggestions for improving public safety.
The last police officer
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.
Looking for Alaska’s ‘rural’ state police force? Check the fast-growing Mat-Su Borough.
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.
Why remote Alaska communities that need cops aren’t getting them
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.
‘We can make this a better place': Iowa police round up supplies and cash to better equip an Alaska village force
After reading that Savoonga officers don’t have bulletproof vests, guns or even Tasers, an Iowa officer reached out to help.
Have you experienced sexual violence in Alaska? Help us report these stories.
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.
Dozens of convicted criminals have been hired as cops in rural Alaska. Sometimes, they’re the only applicants.
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.
She leapt from a van on the Kenai Peninsula to escape her rapist. Then she waited 18 years for an arrest.
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.
‘I made a change in my life’: Village police say they make a difference despite criminal records
The seven officers in Stebbins explain their criminal records and what it’s like to serve as a police officer there.
Clergy abused an entire generation in this village. With new traumas, justice remains elusive.
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.
One in three Alaska villages have no local police
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.
Related stories
These stories inspired our Lawless series and spurred us to dig deeper into systemic issues surrounding sexual violence and policing in Alaska.
From criminal to cop, and back again, in Alaska’s most vulnerable villages
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.
A broken system of oversight for Alaska’s village police officers
The names of village police officers across Alaska — even the number of officers — is a mystery. Here's why.
911 dispatcher: I was raped and Nome police colleagues ignored the case
“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.
A second woman comes forward to say she was raped in Nome without consequence
She is 21 years old. She says he wasn't the first man to rape her and get away with it.