Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced this month that the state would partner with the Municipality of Anchorage to better address public safety concerns in the state’s largest city.

And while Anchorage’s police chief disagreed with parts of Dunleavy’s characterization of the problem, he welcomed the help.

During his final State of the State address, Dunleavy said Anchorage has a high crime rate compared to the rest of the state.

“In 2024 it had 55% of the state’s murders, 51% of sexual assaults, 67% of car thefts and more than 78% of robberies,” he told lawmakers during the speech, which noted that crime rates across the state had dropped significantly during his tenure. “If you take Anchorage out of the mix, our state’s overall crime rate is well below the national average.”

Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case said the governor’s take on Anchorage crime was narrow and selective.

“It’s a lot more complicated and complex than that,” Case said. “We expect that Anchorage’s crime rate is going to be higher than Homer’s or a smaller jurisdiction that, generally, if you look at crime stats across the country, are going to have lower criminal activity.”

Still, Case said the state and city have been talking for months about how to better address crime in Anchorage.

The city typically prosecutes lower-level crimes, like misdemeanors, while the state tends to focus on felony cases. Case said a lack of communication between the city and state sometimes results in cases slipping through the cracks.

“One of the first things that we talked to the state about is when some of those crimes disappear or don’t get prosecuted, that doesn’t mean there’s not a lower-level misdemeanor crime that the municipality could adopt,” he said.

The partnership is divided into three prongs, state Attorney General-designee Stephen Cox said. The first is aimed at addressing what are called “quality of life” crimes, including retail theft, public drug use and illegal camping, he said.

“On quality of life matters, it’s our view that disorder, this public disorder, it breeds crime, and law and order prevents it,” Cox said.

Those crimes have been the focus of a recent push from city leaders. Anchorage police recently wrapped up a targeted focus on retail theft through the holiday season. City leaders are also set to vote on a series of code changes aimed at better addressing public nuisances, like intoxication and indecent exposure.

The state’s goal, Cox said, is to help support the city’s initiatives by not only providing additional prosecution help, but also bringing in a host of other departments aimed at addressing those crimes as they occur.

The state also plans on rolling out a process for training municipal prosecutors to handle felony cases, he said.

“They’ll have the designation and the ability to bring state felony retail theft cases directly, so that it’s not just the state prosecuting state felonies, but the city prosecutors will be able to do this with these cross-designations as well,” Cox said.

State prosecutors could also be cross-designated to handle Anchorage misdemeanors related to things like illegal camping and public nuisances, Cox said.

The collaboration’s other two prongs will be aimed at intercepting drugs heading into the state and reducing violent crime, including sexual assault.

On drug-related issues, Cox said the state is in the early stages of an improved method of working with postal services and airports to better catch drugs when they first arrive in Alaska.

Case, the Anchorage police chief, said he’s hopeful that the state can work to improve the prosecution of violent crime.

“One of the things that we think the state can help out is taking more of those cases, moving them forward, taking them to grand jury, and moving that process further down the line,” Case said. “We have so many victims in the state, particularly when it comes to sexual assault, and as a state and as a city, that has to be one of our top priorities.”

In his State of the State address, Gov. Dunleavy said he expects all three prongs of the state’s partnership with Anchorage to be in place by spring.

Meanwhile, Cox is awaiting a confirmation vote from the Legislature before he can officially become the state’s attorney general.

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This story was originally published by Alaska Public Media and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

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