Prisons as first frontier of the welfare state in The Last Frontier state

The nickname of the state of Alaska is The Last Frontier, which inspired the title of this post about this local article headlined "Alaska now spends more on prisons than its university system, and the gap is widening."  Here are excerpts explaining what I mean by the post title (with my emphasis added):

Alaska is now spending more on prisons than its state university, a reversal of the state’s longtime practice, and the gap would widen under a draft budget being considered by the state legislature.

Since 2015, when adjusted for inflation, Alaska has cut by 22.4% the amount it spends on the operations of all state agencies combined.  The Alaska Department of Corrections is the only agency whose inflation-adjusted budget has grown during that period.

Sen. Click Bishop, R-Fairbanks, called the current situation “sad.”  Bishop is co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which on Thursday held a hearing that questioned whether the Legislature and governor have reached the limit of budget cuts they can make without significant changes to state law.

Though state spending (not including the Permanent Fund Dividend) has declined by almost half from its peak in 2015, most reductions came early in that period.  The cuts of the past two years have been almost entirely erased by inflation and other annual cost increases....

The budgets for the University of Alaska and the state prison system illustrate the problems now faced by the Legislature and governor.  In 2019, the governor signed an agreement with the University of Alaska Board of Regents that called for three years of budget cuts.  Though the Alaska Legislature was not party to the agreement, it has followed it so far.

At the time, the university system received $327 million from the portion of the budget paid for with revenue from the Permanent Fund and taxes. In the budget under consideration now by the Legislature, the university is slated to receive just $257 million.

One month before signing the university agreement, Dunleavy signed a bill that rolled back prior prison reform legislation.  That prior legislation, known as Senate Bill 91, had encouraged alternatives to prison, such as electronic monitoring, halfway houses and supervised release.

SB 91 reduced prison costs, but many Alaskans believed it was contributing to an increase in property crime and pushed for its repeal.  Since then, the budget of the Alaska Department of Corrections has grown from $291 million in 2019 to $345 million in the plan now being considered by the Legislature.

Much of that increase is due to increases in spending on inmate healthcare and rehabilitation, budget documents show. Department officials told a legislative panel last month that 65% of Alaska’s prison inmates are mentally ill, 80% have some kind of substance abuse disorder, and 65% have reported some kind of traumatic brain injury. Almost one in four inmates is positive for Hepatitis C.

Several hundred inmates were released from custody to relieve prison crowding during COVID-19, but the department now projects a continued rise in the state’s prison population, estimating that by June 2025, more than 4,900 Alaskans will be in prison.  As of February, more than half of the state’s prison population consisted of people who were awaiting trial, not those who had been sentenced.

I share the view that this situation is "sad" with more money now to be spent by Alaskans to cage its citizens than to provide higher education. And it is especially interesting to read that the increased prison spending is mostly for "healthcare and rehabilitation," which likely includes some educational programming, and that the majority of Alaskan prison inmates are mentally ill and/or have substance abuse disorder and/or a serious brain injury.  As is likely true in many states, Alaska is spending more and more monies on prisons in order to tend to its most vulnerable populations, though only after they get involved with the criminal justice system (while other welfare programs like higher education get cut in order to provide welfare services to the incarcerated).