Segment 3 Project - Meghan Millner

The transcription discusses the high crime rates and segregation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The city has exceptionally high crime rates, with certain neighborhoods being more affected than others. The crime rate in Milwaukee is much higher than in similar-sized cities like Minneapolis. The high crime rates are attributed to extreme segregation, poverty, and lack of resources in certain neighborhoods. The environment and poverty levels contribute to the cycle of crime and negatively affect the future of children growing up in these neighborhoods. The city has made little effort to address the issue, relying on increased policing which has proven ineffective. The lack of solutions and resources has a significant impact on the citizens, particularly children and young adults. Activist Vaughn Mays has formed a community task force to address violence and build trust between the community and police. However, overall, the city officials have not taken sufficient action to improve the situatio Hello, my name is Megan Milner. I'm a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student and have lived here for about nine months now, and recently I started researching the following topic because I noticed that there was just a lot of crime and a lot of different life segregation, things like that, and the topic really interested me. So a little bit of background about this topic. The city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is situated on the eastern side of Wisconsin along Lake Michigan with a population of over 560,000. It is known for many things, including the breweries and beer history, which is where it gets the nickname Brew City from, the sports teams, including the Brewers and the Bucks, and the Third Ward, which is comprised of many historical buildings, which brought about the Cream City nickname due to the cream-colored brick of the buildings in the historic ward. Another thing Milwaukee is known for is the exceptionally high crime rates in most of the city and concentrated in certain neighborhoods. A high crime rate is typical in larger cities because of the higher population, but Milwaukee's crime rate is abnormally high. In fact, it is one of the highest areas of concentrated crime in the country. Comparing Milwaukee with a similar size city in the Midwest, Minneapolis, the crime rate is much higher. On a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the highest level of crime, the national score is 22.7. Minneapolis is ranked 52.8 and Milwaukee is at 72.8. Milwaukee is a truly beautiful city, but crime has made certain areas and neighborhoods not safe for the citizens who live there. In this podcast episode, I will be talking about why Milwaukee is so high in crime and why certain areas of the city are so much higher in crime than others. I'll also be talking about what caused this to happen and what are the city officials doing about it and how is it affecting the citizens of Milwaukee. Milwaukee has been on a steady rise in crime over the past few years. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Homicide Tracker, over the past two years, there has been a 91% increase in just homicides alone. There were 201 homicides last year in Milwaukee. Some speculate that the increased crime is due to the extreme segregation and poverty in some of Milwaukee's neighborhoods. In fact, there is strong evidence proving that there is a higher concentrated level of crime in the more impoverished neighborhoods as well as a lower high school graduation rate. The city of Milwaukee is highly segregated with very clear boundaries between poverty-stricken neighborhoods and wealthier ones. Urban Milwaukee's article about the effects of poverty and its impact on the city shows that the less educated a community is, the more impoverished it becomes and the more crimes are committed. It's a cycle that has been happening here for years. In these impoverished communities, they're given lower quality schools with fewer resources and the children growing up in these dangerous settings experience trauma and stress related to violence and shootings. Then they grow up and they have to stay in the community following the same violent lifestyle they learned from those around them. It is proven that the children of low-income parents more often than not turn out to be low-income citizens in the future too. The way Milwaukee has handled the situation is by simply letting it happen. There have been very few attempts to integrate the city and no real solutions to help the citizens on the bad side of town. So what about the environment that creates this crime and continues this cycle? Well, it's a long-known fact that the poverty increases the likelihood of crime. In Milwaukee, segregation as well as high poverty levels in some neighborhoods have caused a higher level of crime. Metcalfe Park is a neighborhood situated on the western side of the city. It's bordered by North Avenue, 35th Street, and Center Street. Metcalfe Park is considered one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city of Milwaukee and it is also one of the poorest with a poverty rate of over 60 percent. According to records from the FBI, there were exactly 10,492 reported crimes in the 2020 calendar year. This neighborhood only has a population of 2,673 people. So what causes this type of environment and why has nothing changed over the years? Well, an economist, Ray Chetty, with colleagues developed an Opportunity Index of the United States to find exact data on the environment a child grows up in and how it affects their future. They used Census Bureau and income tax data and constructed a sample of a group of 20.5 million Americans born between 1978 and 1983. They were all in their mid-30s as of 2015. Then they estimated the outcomes of these citizens across a range of different things. Most of the things measured were economics such as household income. In addition to economics, the incarceration rate, teenage pregnancy, high school graduation, and the percentage who got married were measured. Chetty's data in Milwaukee showed that living in highly impoverished neighborhoods made a negative impact on the children living in them. In a series of highlighted maps, it is shown that in the darkest areas, meaning the higher poverty and crime, the children grow up to make an average income of under $10,000 a year, whereas in the lighter areas, for example, Shorewood, the children grow up to make an average yearly salary of over $50,000. This is important because it's proof that the environment these children are growing up in is negatively affecting their future. In another map, Chetty looks further into the demographic and discovers that young black men in Milwaukee have the worst outcomes. He said, whatever is causing the poor outcomes for black children has a stronger effect on boys than girls. This could be for a few reasons. In these neighborhoods, crime is a normal part of life. There has been a rise in vehicle theft since 2020, with the most offenders being under 16, some even as young as 12 or 13 years old. The pressure from friends and other young adolescents around these neighborhoods has been a major problem in the city with adolescent crime. Chief Circuit Judge Mary Trigiano has said the pandemic has contributed to increased caseloads and stretched resources. When asked where she stands on the issue, she says, since the pandemic has hit and the violence has risen and other kinds of cases, they're holding more youth in detention centers than ever before. So why are some parts of the city more concentrated than others, and what is the city actually doing about this? Well, certain areas of Milwaukee are much higher in crime, and as I mentioned before, Milwaukee is a highly segregated city. There are fewer opportunities for help in some of the neighborhoods, such as Metcalfe Park, and citizens are forced to become part of the crime a majority of the time as a defense mechanism. It is proven that higher crime is a result of a higher poverty rate and unemployment, but there is another possible reason for the highest reported levels of crime. According to Matthew Desmond, who is the author of On Policing the Poor, there has been an extreme rise in over-policing. In the study this research brief focuses on, it has shown that police have hired third-party officers to make the increasingly dangerous neighborhoods more of a focus. This sounds like a positive thing at first, but it isn't for the good of the citizens. Properties in black neighborhoods disproportionately receive citations, and those located in the most segregated neighborhoods have the highest likelihood of being written a citation. Only a third of all citations studied were for domestic violence, while all others were focused on petty crime. Property owners in the area have tried to get around this nuisance by evicting victims of violent crimes, who are then forced to find alternative housing or become homeless. Landlords are also end up trying to discourage and prevent tenants from calling 911. This study proves that the city's efforts to turn crime around by sending in more and more officers are just not working. So how is this affecting the citizens of Milwaukee? There is no clear solution available to solve this problem, but city officials are attempting some sort of effort and acknowledge the severity of it. When asked about the rising homicide level, acting mayor and mayoral candidate Cavalier Johnson said, Milwaukee was one of the best places in America with the highest quality of life for African Americans. That's no longer the case. He also added that creating family supporting jobs would help stabilize people's lives and in return stabilize neighborhoods and ultimately lower the rate of violence. The most at risk group of citizens are the children and young adults living in the city. After the pandemic, the rise in young adults committing crime was apparent. Spending so much unstructured time outside of school and with their friends put these children at a higher risk for violence. While the city of Milwaukee has done minimal work to improve the situation further than adding more police presence to the area, activist Von Mays has put together a community task force to work with the citizens and prevent violence with minimal police involvement. By appointing people with good standing in the communities without the threat of being arrested, it creates a higher level of trust and with the high distrust in police, it appeals to the highest risk citizens such as adolescents and those facing homelessness. When interviewed, Mays said that police shouldn't have to respond to all crises and he believes that improving trust between the communities and the police would help. To conclude, Milwaukee is a beautiful city with a large amount of history and contribution to the country and it's disconcerting that it has become such a violent and unsafe area. It is not uncommon for large cities to have higher crime rates as there are so many people living in a concentrated space but it is clear that Milwaukee has an unusual amount of crime. With so little effort from the city, it shouldn't be a surprise that there has been a steady rise in crime and with the rates more than doubling in just two years, the only solution the city officials presented was sending more police into the area. Given more effort in creating programs and resources for family living in extreme poverty, it's possible the cycle of crime could have stopped a while ago. No one should have to live and raise their children in an environment as dangerous and unpredictable as places like Metcalfe Park. Despite this, I think there are a few factors that were not preventable. For example, the pandemic isolating people and disrupting the structure for children and adolescents as well as the incident with George Floyd creating distrust with the police. Activist Vaughn Mays is making a formidable contribution to turning the city around and creating a safe space for the community to go without the risk of being arrested but there's only so much one person can do. With the crime level showing no signs of slowing down, there's still no sign from city officials making a change in their solution to the problem. There's limited help and almost no resources or programs to help people get out of these dangerous living conditions. Thank you for listening.