Anchorage officials are looking for ways to keep people who break the law out of city parks.
The Alaska Dispatch News reports that the city’s legal department is working to rewrite city parks and trespassing laws to create a better way to deal with chronic misbehavior, which may include a way to ban people for long stretches of time.
Anchorage police Capt. Garry Gilliam says until late last year, officers told people ticketed for misdemeanors like drinking in public that they couldn’t come back to the park for a year. If that person came back they would be arrested and charged with trespass.
That program has been suspended. Anchorage city prosecutor Seneca Theno says the earlier program did not fully comply with due process rights.
