{"id":4750,"date":"2023-08-07T02:16:29","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T02:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4750"},"modified":"2023-08-07T02:58:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T02:58:33","slug":"how-policy-changes-in-milwaukee-courts-imperiled-public-safety-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4750","title":{"rendered":"How Policy Changes in Milwaukee Courts Imperiled Public Safety [PART 1]"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/milwaukee-criminal-justice-system-breakdown-report\/<\/a><\/p>\n

PART ONE IN AN 11-PART SERIES<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Milwaukee County\u2019s criminal justice system has broken down at almost all levels. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Although some of the breakdown can be attributed to the pandemic, some can not. Local officials\u2019 questionable policy decisions also play a role, and it\u2019s imperiling public safety. The pandemic exacerbated some already existing trends and caused others, but officials have not developed effective strategies to recover. Some non-pandemic-related issues, like the ACLU-related Collins Agreement\u2019s impact on proactive policing and plummeting numbers of police officers (down 26% since 1996) have been largely overlooked in the media. <\/strong>
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PROBLEM<\/strong> #1<\/strong>: <\/strong>The first problem IS related to the pandemic, but, more specifically, officials\u2019 reaction to it. Officials in the Milwaukee County criminal justice system and at Tony Evers\u2019 Department of Corrections made a series of policy changes responding to the COVID-19 pandemic that fueled a lack of offender accountability, slowed down the criminal justice process, and kept more defendants, including repeat criminals, out of custody longer and with less pretrial supervision, leaving some free to re-offend<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"milwaukee<\/strong>These decisions ranged from suspending drug testing for people out on bail, suspending risk assessment of people booked into the jail who are subject to bail, and initially reducing the number of courtrooms from 21 to three. From Milwaukee County Chief Judge Mary Triggiano to DA John Chisholm, a series of policy decisions altered public safety in Wisconsin\u2019s most populous county.<\/p>\n

[Note: In 2021, we analyzed<\/a> Milwaukee County medical examiner data to reveal that 96.4% of people listed as COVID deaths had other serious health problems. The response to COVID, although it was happening in real time where much was not yet known, was ultimately a judgment call on how to balance competing harms\/perceived harms. A balance needed to be struck between COVID-19 concerns and the harm caused to public safety by reducing accountability for accused criminals and imperiling the court system\u2019s ability to function effectively. It seems increasingly clear that the latter harm was significant. It has not received enough attention, including whether the system took too long to roll back policies installed during COVID-19\u2019s height.]
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\"milwaukeeTHE SERIES:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We have taken the lead in exploring the problems in Milwaukee County\u2019s Criminal Justice system since our site launched in 2020, breaking stories on Milwaukee police staffing declines<\/a> (which started years ago), the DA\u2019s high non-prosecution rate and new reliance on summonses<\/a>, the 2018 ACLU Collins Agreement\u2019s deleterious effect on proactive policing<\/a>, new jail and police policies restricting bookings<\/a> and arrests, and the massive court backlogs<\/a>, which leave defendants on the streets longer to re-offend and provoke constitutional concerns<\/a>. Milwaukee is at a crisis point, with record homicide numbers and a severe reckless driving crisis.
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Now, a new August 2023 report<\/a> from the Wisconsin Policy Forum has examined Milwaukee County\u2019s Criminal Justice System in great detail, providing fresh data from 2018 (before the pandemic) to 2022. We are excerpting some of the key statistical findings in our 11-part series to further understanding of the problem. You can\u2019t formulate solutions if you don\u2019t understand the problem\u2019s scope. The few news articles that emerged only superficially skimmed over the report\u2019s findings. The report\u2019s authors are Rob Henken, Ari Brown, and Betsy Mueller.
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Although the report deals with the context of the pandemic, it also makes it clear that, in some respects, trends imperiling public safety started before it or have continued, even escalating in some cases, in 2022, after its height. In other words, you can\u2019t blame everything on the pandemic. The report also indicates that, in a number of ways, some problems that escalated during the pandemic have not been resolved by officials even as late as 2022. In other cases, progress has been made.
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\u201cOverall, this report has revealed that multiple key points of the justice system pipeline in Milwaukee County are not functioning in the same way or at the same level as they were prior to the pandemic,\u201d the authors wrote. \u201cIt is now incumbent upon justice system leaders and state and local policymakers to aggressively explore why that is, to what degree it may have impacted public safety, what progress is being made in remedying the identified challenges, and whether additional resources or other solutions are required to get the system back on track.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In each article, which we will run over the next 11 days at 7 a.m. every day, we will outline the problems and present the research. After that, we will run a wrap-up article suggesting solutions. What happens in the state\u2019s largest county has an effect throughout Wisconsin. The WPF report was commissioned by the Milwaukee-based Argosy Foundation and the Milwaukee Community Justice Council (CJC). Most of it is focused on useful data. In cases, where we think aspects were left out, we will note that. In this series, we hope to get past simplistic rhetoric (\u201cit\u2019s the state Legislature\u2019s fault!\u201d on the left or \u201cwho cares what happens in Milwaukee!\u201d on the right.)
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PROBLEM #1: Policy changes that affected safety<\/h2>\n

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, criminal justice leaders in Milwaukee County and the state made a series of policy changes that had a dramatic impact on the criminal justice system in Milwaukee County.<\/p>\n

The Wisconsin Policy Forum report provides an exhaustive detailing of these policy decisions. It does not take a stance on whether they were necessary or went too far. The conclusion that they imperiled public safety in the headline is our own. Beyond that, we are going to keep rhetoric out of this section as well and leave that to you, the readers, and to the solutions article. In this section, we want to tell you factually what occurred. Some of it was known before; other decisions have flown beneath the radar.<\/p>\n

According to the report, these changes included:<\/p>\n