Court and corrections tell Senate panel Alaska has largely caught up with COVID backlog; officials outline pretrial definitions, supervision and monitoring

The Alaska Court System and the Department of Corrections briefed the Senate State Affairs Committee on March 19 about the state’s pretrial population, case processing times and corrections programs.

Nancy Mee, general counsel for the Alaska Court System, told the committee that the backlog created during the COVID period has been "essentially cleared" and that clearance rates improved substantially (she cited a 126% clearance rate in 2024). She explained how courts classify pretrial/unsentenced people and summarized median time-to-disposition measures: about four months for misdemeanors, roughly 5.2 months for C felonies and about eight-and-a-half months for B felonies. Mee said most felony cases do not go to trial (about 2.5% go to trial) and that the majority of cases resolve by guilty plea (about 62%) or dismissal (about 35%), with dismissals often brought by prosecutors.

"It's essentially cleared — we're back to where we were before COVID," Mee told senators when describing backlog trends, while also noting outliers remain and delays arise mainly from continuances, attorney turnover and late discovery.

Representatives of the Department of Corrections provided a detailed operational picture. Zane Niswonger (Director of Institutions) said a 7/1/2025 snapshot showed 9,841 people under DOC supervision, with institutions, probation and parole accounting for the bulk of that population and about 43% of the institutional population unsentenced. Dan Traxinger, chief classification officer, and April Wilkerson, deputy commissioner, described community residential centers (CRCs) capacity (about 82% occupied for some contracts), contracting models (some beds under flat monthly administrative fees and some paid per occupied bed) and rising contract and health-care costs since COVID.

Dusty Dumont, director of the Division of Pretrial, Probation and Parole (DP3), described pretrial services activity and supervision tools. He said pretrial services completed over 17,000 validated risk assessments in 2025 and noted a recent day with about 1,096 individuals on electronic monitoring and more than 1,200 monitoring devices in use. DP3 is piloting a mobile supervision platform (video check-ins, automated reminders, mobile reporting) and a pretrial step-down program to move compliant individuals through supervision more quickly.

Committee members asked about rural supervision and whether people arrested in villages could be arraigned remotely and remain in their communities with supervision; presenters said telephonic arraignments and remote checks are available in some areas and that DOC and DP3 work to support rural supervision but will collect more precise counts on how many people are supervised remotely. Senators also raised geriatric and medical parole rules; Commissioner Winkelman said statutory geriatric and medical parole requirements are restrictive and exempt many elderly or medically frail people from eligibility under current law.

Officials emphasized that judges make release decisions under statutory factors (including risk of nonappearance and community safety) and that the court and corrections systems are working together to reduce delays and improve supervision while protecting victims. The committee did not take formal action after the presentations.