Want to Escape a Criminal Past? Move to Alaska (Like I Did)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

FILED 10:00 p.m.
05.03.2018

LIFE INSIDE

Want to Escape a Criminal Past? Move to Alaska (Like I Did)

After I left prison, nobody would hire me. So I threw a dart at a map.

By J.T. PERKINS III as told to MAURICE CHAMMAH

Alaska is full of people who moved here to get away from their criminal pasts. Maybe it’s the laws, maybe it’s the culture, or maybe it’s just the way you grow up hearing about how wild and free this place is. I came to Alaska to escape what Kansas was putting me through after I got out of prison.

I’d been arrested in February 2009 for possession with “intent to sell” cocaine, within 1,000 feet of a school. I was in my mid-20’s, and it wasn’t my first trouble with the law—I’d been locked up for much of my teenage years on a marijuana charge. This time, I was convicted and sentenced to a few years in a prison near Kansas City. When I got out, in the summer of 2012, I knew I wanted to start over.
....

It was March 2015. By then I was done with parole, meaning I didn’t have to stay in Kansas, and the registry is only for people who live inside the state. ... That’s when I decided to leave. I threw a dart at a map, and it landed on Alaska. I looked up to see if they make you register for drug crimes there, and they don’t.

I packed my things and flew to Fairbanks on a Saturday. I knew it was perfectly legal for me to leave Kansas, and yet I still felt nervous the whole way, expecting at any time to be stopped and arrested. The registry had conditioned me to be paranoid. When I arrived, it was -29 degrees, and I didn’t own a jacket. I thought, What fresh hell I have come to? But by Monday, I had a job at a rental car agency at the airport. They did a background check on me, but it was just for crimes committed in the state, so I came up clean.
....

Life Inside
Perspectives from those who work and live in the criminal justice system.
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[Blue_Tires]

1. Hell, he might as well have gone to Australia instead...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Writing that down. For a friend. NT

[Blue_Tires]

10. I personally just don't understand going anywhere cold for a clean slate fresh start....

[More_Cowbell]

4. Which everyone knows is entirely peopled by criminals!

Sorry, the Princess Bride moment swept me away.

[magicarpet]

3. Congratulations you found your fresh start...

Relax and enjoy it. More power to you.

[magicarpet]

5. Oh, I forgot... you want to smoke a Doobie ?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. Note that it was the story's author who moved to Alaska, not I. NT

[magicarpet]

9. Oh, I am sorry. Thought the original poster was one and the same with the Alaskan mover...

My error..... sorry.

[Bucky]

6. All of America used to be a place where you can make a fresh start.

Now the past clings to us like a dirty secret

[Collimator]

8. Pro and Con

There are a lot of people hampered by a criminal past who want nothing more than to create a bright, productive future. They deserve support and our society is better off putting money into policies and services that rebuild lives rather than policies that promote recidivism.

However, there are damaged and dangerous people who are compelled to harm others. I don't want to see them warehoused, and if there are treatments that can bring them some peace so that they don't need to victimize others, then it is worth directing some resources towards them.

That being said, we have a right to protect ourselves and a duty to protect others. Smart and reasonable policies are needed to meet that concern as well.