Marc Antrim is the first commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections to land in that position after climbing his way up through the ranks.  After starting out as a corrections officer at Lemon Creek Corrections Center, he spent 20 years working his way to the top.  Now, as commissioner, Antrim enjoys the freedom he has to mobilize ideas that he has developed through his experience working in various positions in the department.

Recently, The Corrections Connection Network News talked with Antrim about his journey upward through the Alaska correctional system and the unique challenges associated with running a department in Alaska, with its distinct cultural and geographical characteristics.

Q: How did you become involved in the corrections field?

Antrim: I went to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, specifically to go to their criminal justice program.  While there, I was mentored by two professors of some renown - Ken Stockholm, who was chairman of the program at the time, as well as professor Gary Copus.  Both those guys got me thinking beyond my college career.  Actually professor Stockholm put me on track to law school, but you need to work and do those kinds of things, so professor Copus got me thinking about corrections.

I took a break after two years and went to work at Lemon Creek Correctional Center here in Juneau, which is I guess, something [interesting.  The name 'Lemon Creek'] refers to the gold mining days and the creek that runs alongside the facility was a lemon - it didn't produce any gold.

I worked there [for] about six months and caught the fall semester after it started.  I finished up college, [got a degree in criminal justice], then I came back to work here as a corrections officer. 

I went right back and started again as a CO.  Both times I was a CO on the floor.  This time, I went through the department's academy and started as a ground level CO.  It was an incredible experience.

Corrections work teaches you probably more about people than any other profession on the face of the earth. You see [people] at their worst, but you also see some glimmers of hope and see them at their best.

After three years, I took another break for education and went off to a year of law school.  I went down to the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, Calif.

Quite honestly, I think that is where I made my decision that corrections was my career.  I did well in school, but I just discovered that as well as I was doing, it just wasn't the kind of career I wanted.  I was more of a hands-on person.

I came back to work at Lemon Creek again and my career took off at that point.  I stayed with it and I worked all the various positions [in corrections] - from the floor position providing direct supervision to offenders, all the way to booking officer to the armed post on the perimeter and gun towers. I did all that.

Alaska is a totally unified system, so there's a lot of opportunity here to do jobs that aren't really available in many other state correctional systems.  For example, booking - usually that's a function that is done at the county level.  Here in Alaska, it's done at the state level.

I've got a total of 20 years [experience in corrections] and, along the way, I became very active politically through our unions, which gave me a lot of exposure in the political realm.  As an offshoot of that, I got very involved with a small group of corrections employees in Governor [Frank] Murkowski's campaign two years ago.  He won by a landslide and I was selected [to head the state Department of Corrections].

I'm the first commissioner that has ever started at the bottom of our system and made it all the way to the top.

Q: How has starting out as a CO and rising through the ranks to become commissioner colored your perspective as leader of the department?

Antrim: I think that I'm very in tune with the nuts and bolts [of the operation] and how things are done.  I have a great respect for those employees who are on the front line and what they have to face every day.  I will never forget [what that was like].

A little over two years ago, I was booking drunks in and handling the day-to-day operations of a correctional facility.  Now, I have oversight over the entire system.  It gives me a real sense of what our men and women are doing, day in and day out, in a very difficult job.  [I have first hand knowledge about the job and the system that I can bring to state legislators to help them understand what we are facing].

When I say our system is unified, it runs all of the jails and prisons [in the state].  It's probably equally important [to mention that] we also control all of the probation and parole functions in the state.  We've got a pretty broad system that I am responsible for overseeing.  It's pretty varied.

Also, geographically, we're almost as big as the rest of the country.   I'm responsible for facilities from one end of the state to the other.  Traveling and communicating [can be difficult].  Logistical problems that many other systems don't have to deal with are a day-to-day fact of life for us.

Q: What are some of the challenges of your job?

Antrim: We have a lot of dynamics our system faces.  The makeup of the state of Alaska ethnically is a little different than the rest of the country. 

Statistically, our situation here is we have a higher than average number of Alaskan native offenders.  What that presents us with is the challenge in providing culturally relevant programming to them, communication with them directly and then maintaining visitation and communication with their families in the various locations around the state in towns and villages that are often pretty remote.  It's a challenge.

One of the big movements in the country involves prisoner re-entry.  It's been a big challenge for us to assist our native Alaskans in re-entering these very remote communities where there aren't job opportunities in the traditional sense.

What we're doing is setting up a model that is a little different.  Unfortunately, community-based treatment is not available in some of these small communities.  We'll work with them through the re-entry program while they are in one of our larger cities and then ease them into re-entering life in our smaller villages.

Another one of our big challenges is substance abuse.  Substance abuse is a component of crime almost [every time] up here, though it takes on an element of its own because of our remote location and societal desperation.  In some of our smaller communities, substance abuse takes on an aspect that is just inconceivable elsewhere in the country.  As a result, something in excess of 95 percent of all of our criminal offenses involve substance abuse in some aspect, so a big part of our focus here is assisting people in dealing with that.

Q: What do you like best about your job?

Antrim: I look at it as a gift.  This is a department that I have given my adult life to and most employees spend their workday thinking:  "If I were the boss, this is what I would do."  I am very grateful to the governor for giving me this opportunity [to run this department].  What I love about it is that I am really trying to do some of those things that I have talked about for a long time.

Something I have focused on and [an area where] we are seeing some success that I am really enjoying is culturally relevant programming.

We have been talking throughout my career about reaching out to the native [companies and agencies] and bringing them in to help us with some programming and making connections to assist people in the re-entry process.  We've never actually done it, but we are [now].  We've got a very active native community here and we have some very strong partnerships developing to assist [us].  That is very satisfying for me to be a part of that.

I think another thing that I am very happy to be part of is moving our corrections officers and probation officers from a social services model more towards a law enforcement and public protection model.  That is kind of a cultural shift.  Many of our older staff see themselves as service providers.  Newer staff [are] coming with a public protection and law enforcement model in mind.  We're moving the department in that direction.

Finally, I think this administration is conservative fiscally and socially.  From a fiscal perspective, one of the things we've been asked to do is impose performance-based management for our state.  This is the first time many agencies have been asked to really look at outcomes.  Certainly for a social service-type of agency, like corrections, where we're trying to effect change on a social level that hasn't been done very often across the country.  We're having some moderate success with that.  We're really trying to measure whether a sex offender treatment program actually has the effect we want it to have [and] whether our substance abuse programs are as effective as we'd like or if they need to be tweaked or if we need to move to another model.

Q: What advice do you have for people working in the corrections field?

Antrim: I think you need to really focus on yourself as an ethically based person and always operate with as much integrity as you can operate with.  Don't cut corners.  Don't take the easy way.  Do it the right way.  What you'll find is that you'll be recognized for those traits.  If you want to promote and take on that responsibility, that is the way to get here - do it the right way.

Q:  How do you maintain balance in your life?

Antrim: I'm a fishing fanatic.  Up here, it kind of goes with the territory in Alaska.  I also snowboard and ski.  I travel pretty widely for recreation.  I read voraciously and I'm very interest in computers.  Mountain biking, outdoor activities are pretty big up here. I try to stay busy.