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| Looking at the shore off a cruise ship, Alaska. Photo credit: Anna Tong (2012) |
When we asked about movie theaters and TV shows, he mentioned that the town didn’t have a theater, and many locals lacked televisions or internet access. As teenagers, we contemplated at the thought of being so disconnected. While I could not imagine myself living in Alaska, this is the reality for some.
It made me wonder, who would live in Alaska? The Census Reporter estimates that Alaska’s current population is just above 740,000 with a predominantly white population (57%), and Native Alaskans (13%) representing the next highest percentage. While the population seems to be increasing, the working-age population is declining.
Alaska has long captured the American imagination as the ultimate frontier for a fresh start. The state actively incentivizes newcomers through the Permanent Fund Dividend, which pays residents simply for living there for a calendar year. Beyond financial perks, the profound remoteness of the state offers a unique social refuge. People fleeing restrictive pasts (such as having a criminal record) often migrate to the state specifically because of its remote nature and anti-establishment culture.
For some, this seclusion provides a necessary second chance. J.T. Perkins III tells a reporter for The Marshall Project about how he recommends for someone with a criminal record to flee to Alaska to avoid restrictive public registries and social stigma. J.T. also describes the community created within insolation fosters an environment where neighbors judge each other by current actions rather than past mistakes. However, this "leave me alone" culture has a devastatingly dark side for vulnerable populations.
While property crime in the state has dropped to its lowest levels since 1985, violent crime remains staggeringly high. The Alaska Beacon discusses how Alaska’s rates of violent offenses have outpaced the national average since 1993, driven heavily by very high rates of rape and aggravated assault. In fact, the rate of reported rape in Alaska has consistently hovered between three and four times the national average for the last decade according to the Alaska Beacon. The Alaska Justice Information Center also reported in 2021 on the FBI's Uniform Crime Report comparing Alaska's rates to rates nationwide. It is no surprise that the crime rates in Alaska are so bad considering the lack of law enforcement (read more about that in an earlier blog post here).
This social crisis is compounded by a severe lack of public infrastructure, another direct consequence of rural isolation. NPR investigated the conditions of rural schools in Alaska. Because shipping heavy equipment and housing skilled workers is astronomically expensive, basic maintenance of schools are frequently abandoned by the Alaskan government. As a result, rural Alaska Native communities are left with schools that are literally collapsing into the permafrost, filled with black mold and structural hazards.
This structural neglect extends to basic household utilities, with more than 200 rural Alaskan communities currently facing inadequate access to water. Residents without piped water are forced to survive on less than six liters a day, severely impacting public health.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the isolation of rural Alaska acts as a double-edged sword. It functions as a hiding place for social outsiders or people with a criminal record who are seeking to relocate, while simultaneously trapping its marginalized residents in a cycle of violent crime and infrastructural decay.
It made me wonder, who would live in Alaska? The Census Reporter estimates that Alaska’s current population is just above 740,000 with a predominantly white population (57%), and Native Alaskans (13%) representing the next highest percentage. While the population seems to be increasing, the working-age population is declining.
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| Tourists visiting Nugget Falls in Juneau, Alaska. Photo Credit: Anna Tong (2012) |
For some, this seclusion provides a necessary second chance. J.T. Perkins III tells a reporter for The Marshall Project about how he recommends for someone with a criminal record to flee to Alaska to avoid restrictive public registries and social stigma. J.T. also describes the community created within insolation fosters an environment where neighbors judge each other by current actions rather than past mistakes. However, this "leave me alone" culture has a devastatingly dark side for vulnerable populations.
While property crime in the state has dropped to its lowest levels since 1985, violent crime remains staggeringly high. The Alaska Beacon discusses how Alaska’s rates of violent offenses have outpaced the national average since 1993, driven heavily by very high rates of rape and aggravated assault. In fact, the rate of reported rape in Alaska has consistently hovered between three and four times the national average for the last decade according to the Alaska Beacon. The Alaska Justice Information Center also reported in 2021 on the FBI's Uniform Crime Report comparing Alaska's rates to rates nationwide. It is no surprise that the crime rates in Alaska are so bad considering the lack of law enforcement (read more about that in an earlier blog post here).
This social crisis is compounded by a severe lack of public infrastructure, another direct consequence of rural isolation. NPR investigated the conditions of rural schools in Alaska. Because shipping heavy equipment and housing skilled workers is astronomically expensive, basic maintenance of schools are frequently abandoned by the Alaskan government. As a result, rural Alaska Native communities are left with schools that are literally collapsing into the permafrost, filled with black mold and structural hazards.
This structural neglect extends to basic household utilities, with more than 200 rural Alaskan communities currently facing inadequate access to water. Residents without piped water are forced to survive on less than six liters a day, severely impacting public health.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the isolation of rural Alaska acts as a double-edged sword. It functions as a hiding place for social outsiders or people with a criminal record who are seeking to relocate, while simultaneously trapping its marginalized residents in a cycle of violent crime and infrastructural decay.
Reflecting back on that cruise I was on in 2012, it’s wild to think that my biggest concern was just a lack of internet or a local movie theater. I was completely blind to the harsh realities of what extreme isolation means for the people living there.
3 comments:
Your framing of isolation as a “double-edged sword” is helpful, but I wonder if the legal aspect deserves more attention. You mention that individuals with criminal records sometimes move to Alaska to escape public registries and social stigma. This raises the question of whether this is a problem caused by isolation itself or by the inadequacy of legal frameworks that don't work well in low-density, high-cost environments. The school infrastructure and water access issues seem less about remoteness per se and more about state abandonment—specifically, the government’s decision not to invest in maintaining schools or piped water systems. Similarly, the violent crime rates you cite may reflect not just a “leave me alone” culture but chronic underinvestment in law enforcement and victim services. If that’s the case, the policy response would likely look different than if isolation were the root cause.
Regarding the crime statistics you present here, particularly that “Alaska’s rates of violent offenses have outpaced the national average since 1993, driven heavily by severe rates of rape and aggravated assault.” I would be curious to know what the dominant stories are in these cases. Particularly who the perpetrators and victims are, and whether these statistics stem mostly from rural citizens’ interactions with each other, or from their interactions with “outsiders”. By outsiders, I am thinking not only of individuals fleeing criminal jurisdictions, but also temporary workers, who come in for various seasons to work in Alaska’s extractive industries. As such, I wonder if there are mechanisms through which we could hold corporations responsible for the criminal endeavors of their workers, particularly where they hold special contracts with rural communities and governments.
Your thoughts as a teenager when first visiting Alaska are also worth considering when discussing the downsides of living in rural spaces. For teenagers and young adults, movie theaters, the internet, and other simple social spaces provide community. The abandonment of Alaska through lack of adequate legal and social services plays a large part in what might draw people to leave, however I also wonder how big of a part the lack of social spaces plays in young Alaskans leaving.
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