Milwaukee may have started to get a handle on the ongoing crime rate increase in the city in the past few years. City leaders talked about the decrease in crime stats during the first week of January. They report the first decrease in homicides and non-fatal shootings in the past three years. Constance Kostelac, the director of Milwaukee’s Homicide Review Commission, states there are some positive signs. The levels are still too high, but we are going in the right direction currently. As of December 27, there was a preliminary total of 171 homicides in 2023. That number is 20% lower than the 215 recorded in 2022. Those 2023 numbers can change as investigations are still going on. The drop in non-fatal shootings was only 5%. These numbers are close to national trends. National trends show a 12% drop.
Chief Norman states the community plays a big part along with the police to help with crime issues. This past summer they again came out with their summer shooting initiative. This is where the police use special units in neighborhoods with concentrated gun violence. They use the shot-spotter technology to find where shots are coming from. In these cases, you do not need anyone to call in the actual shots because the department is notified by the sensors they are in the neighborhoods. That is good because some people in neighborhoods do not even call the police anymore when they hear shots. The Chief is also using the Police Athletic League or PAL to get the youth involved. They bused a large group of youth, this past December, to the Pettit National Ice Center for youth night. They used part of the federal pandemic aid money that is aimed at violence prevention.
Extra attention was also given to domestic violence prevention, which still is a big problem. They received state money to help expand a Task Force of DV related incidents. They help to look at and protect elevated risk victims and make sure offenders are held accountable. A pilot program at District 4, was started this year which allows victim advocates to go along with officers to these kinds of calls.
Overall, the situation is improving but we still have a long way to go. People mostly want to see an effort being made to improve our overall quality of life. It will take us all working together to improve our city. There still is a lot of reckless driving, we all see it every day. There are shootings on the expressway every so often from road rage incidents and someone getting cut off. All these offenses must be reported to the police and hopefully we can get a handle on these bad characters.