Across Alaska, crime is up.
Department of Public Safety released its Uniform Crime Report, comparing 2017 to 2016.
The department said that statewide crime rose by 6 percent last year, as part of part of a longer-term increase in Alaska crime.
The rate of violent crimes, such as murder, rape, robbery and assault, increased by 34 percent from 2013 to 2017. Property crime rates grew, too, by 22 percent in the same period.
Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan pointed to Alaska’s more densely populated communities as particular areas where violent crime increased most dramatically.
“We’ve actually seen a lot more activity in the urban area in regards to some of the violence that kind of related to related to gangs,” Monegan said as he took questions from reporters during a news conference Wednesday.
According to the Department of Law’s data, felony prosecutions last year went up mainly in urban hubs and western Alaska.
Monegan said Alaska’s designation as a “high-intensity drug-trafficking” area by federal officials means it will receive an injection of funds to help combat the ongoing opioid crisis.
“Understanding that a lot of the violent crime is being driven by the drug epidemic itself,” Monegan said. “With the high-intensity drug trafficking money that we’re gonna be receiving shortly, that is going to be a concerted effort to try to address the gangs, address the drugs, and we should see a — hopefully — a reduction in violent crime.”
Thirty-two police agencies from around Alaska submitted data for 2017.
The Uniform Crime Reporting data is submitted to the FBI as part of a nationwide effort to collect national crime statistics.
You can find a link to the full report here.
