Prof. Brandeis appointed to ACLU litigation committee

Prof. Jason Brandeis, Justice faculty, was recently appointed to the Litigation Committee of the ACLU of Alaska Foundation. This committee assists in guiding the legal work of the ACLU on constitutional rights and civil liberties matters arising under the U.S. and the Alaska Constitutions.

Justice Center research highlighted by Victims for Justice

The 2010 Alaska Victimization Survey commissioned by the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault and conducted by the Justice Center was highlighted in the Winter 2010 "Victim's Voice," the newsletter of Victims for Justice.

The 2009 Needs Assessment Survey for the Alaska State Victim Assistance Academy was conducted by the Justice Center at the request of Victims for Justice and was also cited in this issue. The assessment helped identify training topics for the first Alaska Victim Assistance Academy held in May 2010.

The next Alaska Victim Assistance Academy will be held May 15-20, 2011.

Winter holiday closure

Happy Holidays!

The Justice Center, along with the rest of the UAA campus, will be closed for the winter holiday break from 12:00 noon on Wednesday, December 22, 2010. We will reopen for our normal business hours on Monday, January 3, 2011.

All of us at the Justice Center wish you a festive holiday season, with all best wishes as we enter a new year.

Justice Center gang research now on National Criminal Justice Reference Service database

The Justice Center report, "Fairbanks Gang Assessment," prepared for the Alaska Division of Juvenile Justice and the Fairbanks Gang Reduction and Intervention Network (GRAIN), has recently been added to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) database.

Co-authors of the "Fairbanks Gang Assessment" report are Khristy Parker and Jennifer McMullen, Justice Center Research Professionals; Dr. André Rosay, Justice Center; and Shea Daniels, Alaska Division of Juvenile Justice.

NCJRS is a federally funded resource offering justice and substance abuse information to support research, policy, and program development worldwide.

Co-author Shea Daniels, Alaska Division of Juvenile Justice, has been invited to present on how to complete a community gang assessment at the "2011 National Gang Symposium" in June. Ms. Daniels will be presenting with Michelle Arciaga, Senior Research Associate, from the National Gang Center.

Tacoma, Washington is currently considering a gang assessment project. The Justice Center "Fairbanks Gang Assessment" report was reviewed by the Tacoma City Council Public Safety, Human Services, and Education Committee during the discussion about their proposed 2011 Gang Assessment.

Dr. Rosay presents at Indian Nations Conference

Dr. André Rosay of the Justice Center and Ms. Katherine TePas of the Alaska Governor's Office were invited by the National Institute of Justice to present UAA Justice Center research on violence against women and its impact on the Governor’s Initiative to end the epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Their presentation at a one-day workshop on "Victim Focused Data and Research"was part of the agenda for the three-day 12th National Indian Nations Conference on Justice for Victims of Crime held in December in Palm Springs. Dr. Rosay and Ms. TePas, who is the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Response Coordinator for Alaska, presented data from the 2010 Alaska Victimization Survey.

The one-day workshop was designed to present recent findings from a number of local and national research and evaluation studies specifically in the area of violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women.

Justice Center develops evaluation tool for 2011 Alaska Victim Assistance Academy

Khristy Parker, Justice Center Research Professional, is developing a new evaluation tool for the 2011 Alaska Victim Assistance Academy (AVAA). This new instrument will incorporate the 2010 evaluation format and comments from the AVAA Steering Committee to better meet the needs of the AAVA.

The first Alaska Victim Assistance Academy was held in May 2010. The AVAA is part of the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime program which provides training for individuals assisting crime victims. The Alaska curriculum includes training on a wide spectrum of victim services and focuses on issues that are unique and specific to the state. The Alaska program is coordinated by Victims for Justice.

Justice Center research cited in Alaska Dispatch article

The online newspaper, Alaska Dispatch, cited Justice Center research on sexual assaults in a December 6, 2010 online article, "Feds fighting sex abuse cycle in rural Alaska." Reporter Craig Medred cited data from the 2008 Spring/Summer issue of the Alaska Justice Forum, "Sexual Assaults Reported to Alaska State Troopers," co-authored by André B. Rosay, Greg Postle, Darryl S. Wood, and Katherine TePas. The Forum article reviewed data from a Justice Center report examining sexual assaults reported to Alaska State Troopers in 2003-2004 in Alaska's smaller communities.

Dr. Rosay profiled in The Northern Light

Dr. André Rosay of the Justice Center and his recent contract award to provide research services to the Governor's Office are the focus of an article, "Dr. Rosay stands up to violence," in the student newspaper, The Northern Light, December 7, 2010 issue.

Dr. Rosay is partnering with the Office of the Governor and the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault to establish baselines in case outcomes and recidivism for the Governor's Initiative to end the epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault in Alaska. He is building research and evaluation capacity to monitor the effectiveness of the Initiative.

Dr. Marny Rivera and Dr. Sharon Chamard, Justice faculty, were interviewed about Dr. Rosay's role in the Justice Center and his research on violence against women for the article.

Justice faculty present at American Society of Criminology conference

Dr. Darryl Wood and Dr. Marny Rivera

Dr. Marny Rivera, Justice faculty, and Dr. Darryl Wood, Justice affiliate faculty, presented a poster session on the "Alaska Victimization Survey: From Research to Policy and Practice" at the November 2010 American Society of Criminology conference in San Francisco.

Co-authors for the poster presentation are André Rosay, Justice Center; Katherine TePas, Alaska Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Response Coordinator; Darryl S. Wood, Washington State University Vancouver; and Marny Rivera and Brad Myrstol, Justice Center.

The Alaska Victimization Survey provides the first definitive measures of the incidence and prevalence of violence against women in Alaska.

Justice majors update Alaska Peace Officers Association field manual

Left to right: Justice major Jeanene Walker, Justice Center Acting Director Dr. Allan Barnes, Justice major Sean Eichrodt, and APOA Business Manager Joe Young. Not pictured are Justice student team members Windy Thomas and Charlotte Morthorpe.

A team of Justice majors recently completed an update of the "Field Manual for Alaska Peace Officers," a publication of the Alaska Peace Officers Association (APOA). The pocket manual was first produced in 1978 and is a compilation of selected Alaska state statutes. Joe Young, Business Manager of APOA, approached Dr. Allan Barnes, Justice Center Acting Director, for assistance with this project. Students of Dr. Allan Barnes worked to update the manual which is distributed to all APOA members free of charge.

APOA was organized in 1947 and currently has 1,200 members. The organization is an inter-agency group, and members are from local, state, and federal levels of law enforcement, corrections, and the prosecutors' offices.

Fall 2010 issue of Alaska Justice Forum

The most recent issue of the Alaska Justice Forum features articles on school resource officers (SROs); methamphetamine prevention efforts; and a recent 9th Circuit ruling on felon disenfranchisement. The 8-page issue includes the following articles:

"Police in Schools: Public Perceptions" by Brad A. Myrstol

This articles provides a history of School Resource Officers (SROs) — certified, sworn police officers who are employed by a local police agency but are assigned to work in local schools — and presents results of public perceptions of SROs in Anchorage School District schools based on questions in the 2009 Anchorage Community Survey.

"Measuring and Fighting Meth Use in Alaska and the U.S." by Marny Rivera and Jenny Baker

A description of efforts nationally and in Alaska to combat the use of methamphetamines, with particular focuse on the work of the Alaska Meth Education (AME) Project, which collaborates with local governments — including the Municipality of Anchorage, Kenai Peninsula Borough, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Fairbanks North Star Borough, and the City and Borough of Juneau — to educate youth and the general public about the dangers of meth use.

"9th Circuit Update: En Banc Order Vacates Felon Disenfranchisement Opinion" by Deborah Periman

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stood alone among the circuits in holding, in Farrakhan v. Gregoire, that state law denying felons the right to vote is a violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, where discrimination in the state’s criminal justice system results in race-based denial of the vote. Now an en banc order by the 9th Circuit has vacated that decision, which was discussed in a previous Forum article. Implications of this decision are discussed.