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A visitation suspension that was once put in place to protect people within Alaska’s correctional facilities is now doing the opposite, officials from the Alaska Black Caucus said Thursday.
The caucus has been pushing for months to have visitation restrictions loosened in the state’s correctional facilities because of the impact it has on attorney-client communications.
The Alaska Department of Corrections halted all in-person visitation last March when COVID-19 was first detected in the state. At the time, officials said they implemented safety precautions in hopes of minimizing the risk of virus spread in Alaska’s crowded jails. But by fall and winter, COVID-19 was spreading rampantly in the state’s correctional facilities.