Lauree Morton’s last day as the executive director of the Alaska Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (the “Council”) is Dec. 15, 2016. She’s worked at the Council for the past nine years and had served as its executive director since 2011. She previously served as the executive director of the Tundra Women’s Coalition in Bethel and then as the Executive Director for the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. I ask that you join me in thanking Ms. Morton for making Alaska a better and a safer place.
The Council has a mission to provide safety for Alaskans victimized or impacted by domestic violence and sexual assault through a system of statewide crisis intervention, perpetrator accountability, and prevention services. Since 2010, we have made substantial progress in all three of these areas. Rates of violence have substantially declined. Data from the Alaska Victimization Survey show that from 2010 to 2015, the percentage of adult women in Alaska who experienced intimate partner violence or sexual violence dropped by 31 percent. In particular, alcohol- or drug-involved sexual violence dropped by 44 percent. Overall, there were 8,055 fewer victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in 2015 than in 2010. These are impressive declines that have substantially improved the health and safety of women in Alaska.
Additional examples are available from the 2015 Alaska Dashboard on key issues impacting domestic violence and sexual assault in Alaska. For example, the rate of reported child abuse and neglect is down 33 percent. The percent of pregnant women experiencing intimate partner physical abuse is down 56 percent. The number of vulnerable adults and the number of vulnerable elders reporting abuse or neglect is down 31 percent. Again, these are impressive declines that have substantially improved the health and safety of women in Alaska.
At the same time, while the number of victims has decreased, the number of people reporting their victimizations to law enforcement has increased. That is important because it allows us to hold offenders accountable. Men and women throughout Alaska are now more likely to report their victimizations. Since 2010, we have also seen an increase in the number of cases accepted for prosecution. We have also seen a decrease in recidivism.
We now have a much stronger focus on primary prevention. In particular, with the assistance of the Council, schools throughout Alaska have implemented the Fourth R healthy relationship curriculum. In addition, communities throughout Alaska have adopted the bystander intervention program Green Dot, as well as many other best practices.
The Council has formed strong partnerships across public and private sectors to fight Alaska’s epidemics of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child sexual abuse. Its overall strategy to support statewide crisis intervention, perpetrator accountability, and prevention services is working. We have seen impressive declines that have substantially improved the health and safety of women in Alaska.
I thank Lauree Morton for everything that she has done over the last nine years with the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault – and for devoting her career to addressing violence here in Alaska. By supporting crisis intervention, offender accountability, and prevention services — and by using data and research to support her decisions — she made Alaska a better and a safer place for all of us.
She made all of us better able to prevent violence, and she made all of us better able to respond to violence when it occurs. She raised our consciousness on this epidemic and she showed measurable results. I want to thank her for everything that she has done, and for her hard work. I want her to know that her hard work did not go unnoticed – it certainly did not go unnoticed by the more than 8,000 women who were not victimized in 2015.
Unfortunately, the Council still has a significant amount of work to do. Rates of violence in Alaska remain unacceptably high. The Council must remain a leader in the fight against domestic violence and sexual assault in Alaska. It will remain a leader in this fight by continuing to support statewide crisis intervention, perpetrator accountability and prevention services.
• André B. Rosay, Ph.D., is an Anchorage resident and is the director of the Justice Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
