For the people who need it most — poor residents of Milwaukee, families and victims of particularly violent crimes like homicide and aggravated assault throughout the state, children in schools where politicians won’t allow police, and almost anyone awaiting a verdict — Wisconsin’s criminal justice system is failing.
Many Wisconsinites are unaffected because property crimes, by far the most common, are down substantially across the state in recent years and many counties have few of the most heinous offenses. Many rural and affluent areas experience less crime than five years ago.
But in Milwaukee in particular, crime is resurgent and often unsolved. The number of police officers has been reduced dramatically — far further than most people likely realize. Arrests are down in much of the state even as crime has recently spiked upward. Prosecutors and defense attorneys are so poorly compensated that vacancies are rampant, and cases often linger for well over a year.
Prisons, finally, remain badly overcrowded and even the mechanisms meant to get low-level offenders into jobs once they’ve been released, instead of back into a cell, are poorly targeted.
In a series of four reports released today (see below), the Badger Institute — as part of our Mandate for Madison — provides a comprehensive, statewide view of the debilitating problems, and the first steps needed to solve them.
A Tale of Two States: Wisconsin Crime Trends, 2017-2022
By Sean Kennedy | September 2022
Toward Swifter Justice: Overburdened Prosecutors and Public Defenders Linked to Wisconsin Court Backlogs
By Jeremiah Mosteller | September 2022
The Thinning Blue Line: Milwaukee Police Department’s Attrition Crisis
By Sean Kennedy | September 2022
Saving Money, Encouraging Work and Improving Safety Through More Rigorous Electronic Monitoring
Badger Institute | September 2022
