MILWAUKEE — Prosecutors and police officers are teaming up in Milwaukee neighborhoods to be more accessible to residents and build relationships, not just lock people up.
The model of positioning prosecutors at the precinct level began in Portland, Ore., in 1990, when a business district helped fund the effort. Variations of the concept have spread around the country, but Milwaukee is one of just a few places to put prosecutors in police stations.
The idea is more relevant than ever as police nationwide try rebuild the public’s trust after high-profile shootings. The Prosecutors’ Center for Excellence, an organization of district attorneys, last year singled out combined police/prosecutor presence in communities as “essential to combat this mistrust in law enforcement.”
“The ground has shifted, and people are now conscious and aware of the systemic issues to a degree that they are actually demanding that we solve problems and not simply take the politically convenient route of the tough-on-crime rhetoric,” said Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, whose office is relying on federal grant money to put a prosecutor in each police district in Milwaukee.
But that funding is not guaranteed. If funding is not renewed by the U.S. Justice Department by July 22, the district attorney’s office will pull prosecutors from three of the city’s seven police districts, including the one where riots erupted last year.
Most of Wisconsin’s black residents live in Milwaukee’s northside neighborhoods covered by District 5 and District 7 — where more than half of the city’s 2016 homicides occurred. A study from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found that almost all of the black men behind bars in the state during the 2010 census were from the northside neighborhoods. In one particular ZIP code, 53206, nearly half the residents live below poverty level, 13 percent are unemployed, and a quarter of the housing units are vacant, according to 2015 census estimates.
“If you keep intervening through arrest and formal prosecution, you’re just going to continue to disenfranchise that same pocket of neighborhoods and of people,” said Jeffrey Altenburg, a deputy district attorney who helped start the initiative in Milwaukee about a decade ago.
As part of their efforts, Milwaukee prosecutors are looking for alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders. About 70 percent of the nearly 900 people who took part in deferred prosecution agreements in the past two years have fulfilled conditions that can include completing drug treatment, staying out of legal trouble or taking job-training classes.
“You have a big say about what can happen to somebody’s life, and it’s important to take that seriously,” said Hanna Kolberg, the prosecutor stationed in District 7, the site of the riots.
A key aspect of the initiative is to focus on people and places that have a disproportionate impact on an area, whether it’s habitual offenders, or businesses and vacant homes that become magnets for criminal activity. That’s why much of the work is driven by what prosecutors and police hear from residents at neighborhood meetings, where they learn about drug dealers, nuisance properties and other concerns.
Assistant Police Chief James Harpole, an early skeptic of the program when he was a district commander, now thinks of the effort as part of a “holistic approach” to improving the community. Plus, he said, “It has helped to break down barriers, to make the community and police closer.”
At a recent meeting between residents and officers of District 5, resident Josephine Key told a police captain that she would like to see more officers patrolling on foot.
“I would love to see my son get along with you guys,” Key, 64, said.