Juneau Police Department Police Chief Bryce Johnson said he isn\u2019t trying to hide anything from the community: crime is on the rise, but that shouldn\u2019t be an indicator that police aren\u2019t working to change that trend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s never nothing we can do, but also we can\u2019t do everything,\u201d Johnson said on Thursday during the Juneau Chamber of Commerce weekly luncheon at the Moose Lodge. Johnson rehashed the \u201cdifficult\u201d news of 2015\u2019s crime report that revealed serious crime in Alaska\u2019s capital increased by 39.59 percent, with homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults reaching five-year highs.<\/p>\n
\u201c(That trend) wasn\u2019t just a spike, those numbers are continuing this year, except for the murder rate,\u201d Johnson said. As previously reported by the Empire, JPD has also seen a rise in burglaries. As of June 30, 113 burglaries were reported, which puts the town on track for the most burglaries recorded in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
But Johnson said another important figure is seven \u00ad\u2014 that\u2019s how many arrests for burglaries the department has made in about a month. He said he hopes that information puts to rest rumors around town that police aren\u2019t responding to residential burglaries or other property crime issues. He said police are also nearing the end of their investigation for the only open homicide case from November 2015, when a local couple was murdered in Douglas. But that doesn\u2019t mean things will be back to normal.<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 91, an overhaul of the criminal justice system in Alaska, has changed how police are investigating and handling other crimes such as drug dealing and possession, he said. First-time possession of narcotics is no longer a felony and the amount an offender has to be holding for felony distribution just means dealers will walk around with less on their person to avoid serious charges, Johnson said. Dealing with people who are arrested for possession \u2014 and making sure they don\u2019t become repeat or more severe offenders \u2014 is now an issue for the community since \u201cstraight to prison\u201d is no longer the answer, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something the community is going to have to do something about. … That\u2019s what the law envisions,\u201d Johnson said, referring to the need for more rehabilitation options in town. \u201cThere\u2019s been no appetite for years (by the police department) to incarcerate people for possession of drugs. … We want to deal with drugs in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assembly member Mary Becker asked Johnson how the rising crime rates are affecting police safety. He said officer safety is much better in Juneau than other areas around the country where solo patrols are just not plausible.<\/p>\n
A development that could soon increase police and community safety is body cameras for police, which Johnson said are just the way of the future. The department has a body camera style in mind that they would like to purchase for the department, but it\u2019s a matter of finances. At this point, he\u2019s not sure when there will be enough funds for cameras for approximately 50 officers.<\/p>\n
When cameras do make their way here, Johnson said it could help crime rates because \u201cpeople are better behaved when they\u2019re on camera.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Paula Ann Solis at 523-2272 or paula.solis@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Juneau Police Department Police Chief Bryce Johnson said he isn\u2019t trying to hide anything from the community: crime is on the rise, but that shouldn\u2019t be an indicator that police aren\u2019t working to change that trend. \u201cThere\u2019s never nothing we can do, but also we can\u2019t do everything,\u201d Johnson said on Thursday during the Juneau […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":17453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-17452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17452"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}