Fifteen Alaska tribal recipients get about $4.4 million for crime victim services

Fifteen Alaska tribes and Native-serving organizations, from Utqiaġvik to Sitka to St. Paul Island, have been awarded about $4.4 million in federal money to help crime victims over the next five years.

The U.S. Department of Justice obligated the grants Oct. 29. They run from Oct. 1, 2026, through Sept. 30, 2031.

The largest, $704,957, went to Tanana Chiefs Conference, which serves Interior tribes. Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government each got $284,130. Northway Village, the Native Village of Point Lay and the Native Village of Buckland each got $256,624.

Nine more got $264,918 each: the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe, Petersburg Indian Association, Hoonah Indian Association, Nenana Native Association, Native Village of Tanana, Native Village of Point Hope, City of Togiak, Aleut Community of St. Paul Island and the Rural Alaska Community Action Program.

The money comes from a share of the federal Crime Victims Fund that Congress sets aside each year for tribal communities. Tribes don't have to compete for it. Every federally recognized tribe that applies gets an award, under the program's rules.

Nationwide, the program has about $90.1 million this year, including about $29.2 million for 123 Alaska applicants, according to a federal allocation table.

Testimony at an April hearing of the Alaska House Tribal Affairs Committee said more than half of Alaska women have experienced intimate partner violence.

At that hearing, Rick Haskins-Garcia of the Alaska Native Women's Resource Center said federal support for tribal justice in Alaska had grown a little since 2016. "It's very few dollars and it's very, very limited. And so oftentimes leaves our tribes to compete for funding, pinning one tribe against the next," he said.

The committee was hearing a bill that would extend the state's confidentiality protections for talks with victim counselors to tribal victim services. It has been in the House Rules Committee since April 29.