The Branchflower Report: Hints of a Larger Crime Problem in Alaska

[WSJ_law_blog]

Late last week, Alaska investigator Steve Branchflower issued a report on the “Troopergate” kerfuffle involving governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Branchflower concluded that Palin abused her authority and broke state ethics laws by trying to remove her former brother-in-law from his job as an Alaska State Trooper. (In response, governor Palin’s spokesman said the findings of ethics-law violations “required speculation and assumptions” that “could not be supported solely on the basis of the evidence.”)

But the report also concluded that Palin did not unlawfully fire her public-safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, who said he had been pressured to oust the trooper, Mike Wooten. In fact, Branchflower found that Palin and Monegan had serious policy disagreements over funding for the Department of Public Safety (which runs the Alaska State Troopers), among other things. Click here for the Oct. 11 WSJ story, and here for the report itself (look specifically at pages 69-71; 199-206; 214-229).

We dug into the issue a little bit, and thought it might be worth putting the Troopergate saga into context about law-enforcement and crime in our 49th state.

The state has for years had a serious problem with sexual crimes, a problem that long predates Gov. Palin’s tenure. According to FBI statistics, in 2007, the state’s rate of forcible rape outpaced that in all 50 states, and for most of the past 20 years it has exceeded the national rate — and been at least twice as high in many years.

“Our sexual-violence problem is severe,” says Andre Rosay, a professor at the University of Alaska-Anchorage and co-author of a recent study on sexual abuse in Alaska. “And the statistics we have probably don’t tell the full story.”

So why are the figures so high?

On the first question, Alaskans point to a number of factors, including high rates of drug and alcohol abuse, as well as geographic isolation and a lack of social services and education. Compounding the problem: a lack of law-enforcement coverage in the less-populated reaches of the state. While most cities have their own police forces, most of Alaska — some 670,000 people spread across about 570,000 square miles — is patrolled by the Alaska State Troopers, a force of about 290. Says Rob Cox, president of the union that represents the troopers: “We have about 250 villages with no law-enforcement protection at all.”

And that’s where some think Governor Palin comes in. As Alaska’s governor, she’s arguably in a better position than other governors to tackle lawbreaking, as throughout much of the state, the state troopers represent the only law-enforcement presence.

Gov. Palin has also faced some criticism for not dipping into an estimated $8.2 billion state surplus to boost policing, the result primarily of increased oil revenue. “We’ve got the largest savings account of any state in the nation,” state Sen. Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat, told us. “Why we can’t put some of this money toward our crime problem is beyond me.”

But spokespeople for Gov. Palin say she has added funding where necessary and has taken other steps to address crime. And Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell recently told the Law Blog that the focus on money is misplaced. “Look, if I thought that throwing a pot of money at the state troopers would solve all our problems, I’d do it,” he says. (Gov. Palin herself was not made available for comment.)

On this point, interestingly, Monegan supports his former boss. “That money is for a rainy day,” he says. “We have no sales tax, no income tax. We just cashed in our crop, and we have to save what we made for the next season.”

Photo: AP