Welcome to Goose Creek Correctional Center, Alaska

All meals do not include fresh fruit. Visitation is cumbersome for families and children. Grandparents cannot bring children to visit unless they are a court ordered guardian. Copies of birth certificates are not good enouGh. Applications for visitation are rejected if they have a return address sticker, even though the application is going to the FACILITY not the INMATE. Father’s Day cards or ANY card is rejected if it has an embellishment, even though ANY card, according to guidelines are NOT given to inmates, they get a copy, so why does it matter? Are guards not trustworthy? Children in custody of inmate, visiting from out of state, cannot see parent unless a legal guardian accompanies them, and a power of attorney from inmate is not considered as a legal guardianship…AND visitations would only be through glass. Obviously children are totally discouraged from seeing parents who are incarcerated. Even though rules say you can send photos, they are screened for drugs…they are rejected because they are not processed through an approved vendor. Website does not provide a list of approved vendors, except for email and digital photos. My son has a photo album to keep photos, not a computer or phone. My son says Walmart and Shutterfly are supposed to be approved vendors. I process my photos through Walgreens where I get member sale prices at 19 cents vs. 50 cents each. Shoes are insufficient and vendor supplied shoes are terribly overpriced for what they get and how long they last. Eyeglasses are not helpful and inmates do not get annual eye exams to correct deficiencies in lenses. My son didn’t receive his prescription for at least 8 months, because they were lost in the mail, and then one lens did not correct his vision. He had to remove one lens in order to use the one good lens. No one checked to see if corrective lenses matched prescription or need after 8 months of waiting. Money orders and cashiers checks shouldn’t take 10 days to process, especially when physical cashiers are not working, as was the case during Covid. Food does not sound like a balanced diet. My son says food is good, but he has gained too much weight. He skips meals and thinks he can compensate with high fructose granola bars. It would help to sell something like KIND brand bars, at a decent price, that have no high fructose content. Exercise would help also. COVID has limited exercise time. Overcrowding limited cell space for any movement for 2 years. My son does not complain. I do. He says the facility is clean and that he only cares to eat once a day, so missing fruits and vegetables is his fault because they serve fruit at breakfast. As far as safety, it appears the facility overcompensates to protect inmates from correctional personnel. Many rules are not shown on website, according to correctional personnel. Rules are not always consistent, they are in flux, so an outsider does not know how to deal with the prison. For items not rated, I have no knowledge or experience with. Phone calls to administrative staff, when answered, have been helpful. People are courteous and appear to try to give answers to my questions.