Alaska Department of Corrections Commissioner Dean Williams has proposed a plan that would see prisoners in the state be able to finish their sentences working in Unalaska’s seafood plants, if the proposal is approved.
When Williams proposed the plan at a city council meeting in the Aleutian Islands’ largest city last week, the audience was generally supportive, according to the Arctic Sounder.
The plan, which would go into effect for the last six months of prisoners’ sentences, would see the prisoners sleeping in workplace bunkhouses because the state corrections facilities are too far to transport prisoners to the plants and back every day. As a result, the Unalaska Department of Public Safety would fund an electronic monitoring system that would track prisoners while they are on the job.
Williams said workers eligible for the program would be primarily those convicted for drug offenses, and that at least one plant in Unalaska was already interested in implementing the program. He said that he had discussed his plan with Trident Seafoods.
Alaska has the nation’s highest recidivism rate, with a large number of released prisoners being re-arrested within six months after their release. Part of the reason behind the recidivism rate is because many prisoners are not able to find steady work upon their release, Williams said. He thinks the plan will help ease the transition of newly-released prisoners transition into life outside of prison.
However, not everyone at the meeting expressed support. City Councilor David Gregory pointed out that the city’s police department is drastically understaffed.
"Bad people are able to find other bad people and do bad things," he warned.
The city’s mayor, Frank Kelty, was cautiously optimistic about the program, and pressed William to return to the council next month with a final plan.
