{"id":29858,"date":"2017-03-30T03:06:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T10:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/rumors-fly-about-where-to-house-defendants\/"},"modified":"2017-03-30T03:06:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T10:06:17","slug":"rumors-fly-about-where-to-house-defendants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/rumors-fly-about-where-to-house-defendants\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumors fly about where to house defendants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Sewell was fully expecting to have the Department of Corrections bringing alleged criminals to Douglas Island.<\/p>\n

A proposed pre-trial program, which would provide further supervision and housing for those who committed non-violent crimes in an effort to reduce prison populations, will be coming to Juneau in the following months. Through word-of-mouth, Sewell (the president of the Douglas Island Neighborhood Association) heard that a pre-trial housing facility would be coming to Douglas Island, to be housed in a DOC office building on Third Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake about it,\u201d Sewell said, \u201cit\u2019s very clear that there was a plan by DOC to have pre-trial service there on Third Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Department of Corrections spokesperson Corey Allen-Young said Wednesday there was never any plan to have the facility on Douglas Island, and that the final location for the facility is yet to be determined. A facility will come to the City and Borough of Juneau sometime this year, Allen-Young said, but the DOC isn\u2019t sure where.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Douglas) was looked at. He\u2019s right about that,\u201d Allen-Young said of Sewell\u2019s assertion, \u201cbut that was not the plan. Nothing was signed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Allen-Young said, the facility is likely not going to end up on Douglas at all. The pre-trial program is part of Senate Bill 91, and there are numerous guidelines in the bill about what to look for in setting up a housing facility. The bill states that if it\u2019s possible to use a building that\u2019s already owned by the state, that would be the easiest.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been challenging to find room to either build a facility or rent property in all the places where pre-trial facilities will be \u2014 including Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, the Kenai Peninsula and the Mat-Su Valley \u2014 but it\u2019s been especially challenging in Juneau.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s part of the difficulty, especially in a place like Juneau,\u201d Allen-Young said, \u201cbecause there\u2019s not many buildings, period. It\u2019s hard to find housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 91<\/a>, signed into law last year, aims to lower the state\u2019s prison population. The bill includes substance abuse treatment and programs that help inmates re-enter society, as well as these pre-trial programs. If a person is arrested for DUI, for example, he or she will not go to jail but will temporarily go to this pre-trial facility. The person would then meet with a pre-trial officer, be under supervision, undergo a background check and then learn his or her placement.<\/p>\n

For certain crimes, a person could pay for his or her own electronic monitoring (such as a bracelet that tracks the person\u2019s location) while still living at home or at the pre-trial facility and still being employed. This way, the state saves money by not incarcerating the individual and the individual gets to live closer to home. Allen-Young said it costs the state about $51,000 per year to imprison someone.<\/p>\n

This idea is a tough one to understand, so Allen-Young can see how those on Douglas Island were scared by the prospect. There\u2019s a neighborhood meeting April 4 at the Douglas Public Library for those concerned, and Sewell has invited both Allen-Young and representatives from the Juneau Police Department. Allen-Young is looking forward to this meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actually embracing it,\u201d Allen-Young said. \u201cI told my boss, \u2018This is a good way to educate people.\u2019 I don\u2019t think people really understand what pre-trial means, what we\u2019re directed to do. So we\u2019re going to have some education going on, some one-pagers, because it is confusing.\u201d<\/p>\n

JPD Public Information Officer Lt. David Campbell is also a little unclear on what the pre-trial program will entail. He\u2019s looking forward to attending the meeting to learn more about the program and about the possible effects.<\/p>\n

Campbell has not been in touch with DOC about the possible effect of the pre-trial program could be on the community. He\u2019s not sure about whether it has a chance to increase crime, but he said the outrage from Sewell and the neighborhood is likely out of a general lack of understanding of the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy take is, that it\u2019s hard to predict what\u2019s going to happen in the future,\u201d Campbell said, \u201cand it\u2019s hard to say what the impact is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\u2022 Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com or 523-2271<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Sewell was fully expecting to have the Department of Corrections bringing alleged criminals to Douglas Island. A proposed pre-trial program, which would provide further supervision and housing for those who committed non-violent crimes in an effort to reduce prison populations, will be coming to Juneau in the following months. Through word-of-mouth, Sewell (the president […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-29858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29858","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\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29858"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}