Governor Dunleavy in Alaska Privitizes Alaska Psychiatric Institute, Strong Indicators Point to Him Doing This With the DOC

This is bad news. Heartbreaking for those of us who worked for changes both in psychiatric care and the prison system in Alaska. In so many places in the United States we are going back in time, undoing hard work, taking illogical steps, setting up systems designed to harm people who are low income, got a bad start in life, have a mental health issue and are a victim of the opioid targeting in this country. They claim they will have treatment, but that claim has been made for years and years, they often use faith based programs which have secondary agendas as a priority to treatment that works.

The GEO Group has had their foot in the door in Alaska waiting for the right time to step in to privatize prisons, Dunleavy has a a former Geo Group lobbyist Ms. Arduin on his staff. The people of Alaska put the kybosh on this once, they can do it again. 

Yesterday the GEO Group was on my blog reading a blog post I wrote in 2014. Then later I saw the article about API being privatized and started doing some research.
 

The article they viewed.

Alaska DOC Coverup: The Story of Wesley Shandy’s Death, an Alaskan Inmate at GEO Group’s Hudson CO Prison

 This article was in the Anchorage Daily News.

Alaska will hand over administrative oversight of its only psychiatric hospital to a company with ties to private prison operators, the state announced Friday.

Wellpath Recovery Solutions will “provide administrative leadership” over the Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services announced Friday.

The contract is being awarded without a competitive bidding process or public review, under a state rule that allows contracting on an emergency basis.

Read more and you will understand the firing of the admn staff was engineered due to not giving them enough staff or money to operate the facility, Now they have DHSS declaring an emergency which allows the state to do this. Someone call Naomi Klein. 

This article was posted in several places including Smart Justice Alaska, written by the fabulous Carmen Gutierrez, the only person in AK DOC administration that would talk to me, listen and try to take action. She was not there for very long, I can only imagine what she went through with the bullying good old boys I tried to communicate with.

Over time, the prison population began to decline. The department closed one prison, fewer people on probation went back to jail and communities developed strategies to assist prisoners in finding housing, employment and other temporary supports, all of which helps keep former prisoners out of trouble in a cost-effective manner. These savings in turn became available for reinvestment in substance abuse services and other rehabilitative programs.
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Of concern here is that these programs are being vetted by Ms. Demboski, someone with no corrections or criminal justice experience and by Ms. Arduin, a former lobbyist for the second largest for-profit private prison company, Geo Group.
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DOC Commissioner Nancy Dahlstrom recently stated the administration is considering privatizing additional DOC operations. 

Is this woman still lobbying for GEO?


Another huge concern: For reasons that are not clear, the new administration rejected a $1 million Federal Second Chance Act grant awarded to the state in October 2018. Alaska was one of only three states to receive this grant. The purpose of the grant was to assist DOC to continue with its recidivism reduction efforts and finance much-needed improvements with its offender data collection system. 

Amy Demboski, Gov. Dunleavy’s current deputy chief of staff was a city councilwoman in Anchorage Alaska. I do not need any words to communicate who she is, I'll just use this picture.