Justice Department allocates $10M for ‘law enforcement emergency’ in Alaska

Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday declared a law enforcement emergency in rural Alaska, as the state grapples with an alarmingly high crime rate and a shortage of police.

The move opens up more than $10 million in federal funds to bolster police efforts. Mr. Barr made the announcement roughly one month after touring Alaska. During the trip, Mr. Barr toured remote towns plagued with violence and drug crimes, but lacked law enforcement to deal with the problem.

“With this emergency declaration, I am directing resources where they are needed most and needed immediately, to support the local law enforcement response in Alaska Native communities, whose people are dealing with extremely high rates of violence,” Mr. Barr said in a statement.

Alaska has the highest per capita crime rate in the country, according to the Justice Department. In some of the remote tribal areas cases of domestic violence are 10 times the national average and sexual assaults are 12 times the national average.

“In many of these rural communities or villages, there isn’t a road. There is nothing,” Katie Sullivan, who heads the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs, told reporters. “Because of the geography, your state trooper may be up to two days away from being able to get in.

“If you are in a village or tribe and you have the courage to come forward [and report a crime] who do you report it to if there is no village police officer or tribal office and how do we preserve the evidence to successfully prosecute that case when your state trooper is far away,” she continued.

The move makes $6 million in emergency funding immediately available to strengthen law enforcement in Native Alaskan villages. That money will go towards hiring, buying equipment and training local law enforcement organizations, including tribal police officers and village public safety officers.

An additional $45 million has been allocated to fund 20 new law enforcement positions in the Native Alaska communities,

The Justice Department has also made another $162,000 available to U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder to create a Safe Neighborhoods site in Alaska. Safe neighborhoods is a Justice Department program to combat violent crime.

Additional steps taken by the Justice Department include the creation of a working group aimed at reducing the high rate of domestic violence in Alaska. The group will focus on domestic violence and crimes against children in rural communities, the department said. Mr. Schroder will lead the working group.

Mr. Barr is also requiring every law enforcement agency in Alaska to submit a plan to improve public safety, prioritizing drug and sexual assaults. The agencies must also work to improve their response times.