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| Kotzebue jail closed to state prisoners over fund shortage |
| By adn.com - KYLE HOPKINS |
| Published: 01/04/2012 |
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Saying state funding for the Kotzebue jail is unfairly low, Kotzebue city officials are refusing to allow the Department of Corrections to hold inmates at their local jailhouse. The jail is one of the busiest in rural Alaska. It normally houses inmates arrested by state troopers in neighboring Northwest Alaska villages until the suspects make their first court appearance. But the city lawyer claims Kotzebue has lost more than $1 million subsidizing the jail over the past seven years and the city is demanding additional funding from the state. In a Sept. 19 letter to the commissioners of Corrections and Public Safety, City Manager Derek Martin called the funding "inequitable, disparate and discriminatory" and said the city would close the jail to state inmates from Dec. 1 through Jan. 31. The move has forced the state to find other places to house defendants at state expense. The closure will resume indefinitely beginning June 30 if the funding problem isn't resolved, Martin wrote. Guided by a series of audits, the Department of Corrections says it is working to determine exactly how much the state ought to be paying to run the Kotzebue jail and 14 other so-called community jails the state uses to temporarily hold prisoners across Alaska. "We don't believe that we are discriminating against any one jail," said Leslie Houston, director of administrative services for the Corrections Department. She said she's optimistic the two sides can reach a resolution by mid-February. Read More. |
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