Get Out of the Central City?

Blogger James T. Harris lives in the central city of Milwaukee, and thus has a first hand view of realities that both suburban conservatives and East Side liberals pretty much see only through the lens of ideology.

That’s why his blog is such compelling reading.

In his most recent entry, he mulls over the question, does a black family that wants a decent environment for its kids need to simply move out.

Milwaukee is getting scary. That’s the word among friends. Yesterday, I had a conversation with a couple that is considering moving “further out.” Their neighborhood changed overnight because of one rental property.

I told them that for the first time in a long time I was feeling nervous. My son is entering high school. It’s a private school, and because of that he will stand out like a sore thumb in my neighborhood. He doesn’t have to wear a uniform, per se, but his attire is nothing close to “urban wear.” My friend sat in his chair and stared at me.

It’s the culture, stupid.

Further:

Adding fuel to the fire, the boy who was assaulted on the bus the other day is speaking out. He gave the reason for the beat down. The thugs didn’t like the clothes he was wearing. He wasn’t dressed like a gang banger, he wasn’t dressed like a rapper, so the gang bang rap wanna be thugs kicked his ass.

Obviously, we have here a self-reinforcing cycle: as people like Harris move out, the neighborhood declines, prompting others to leave.

But doing something about it requires things like tough law enforcement, school choice, and reducing welfare dependency. In other words, things liberals don’t want to do.

Two More Robberies at Marquette

Actually, one robbery and one attempted robbery.

From an e-mail send to the entire Marquette community:

Marquette University Public Safety Alert

April 5, 2008

Two separate robberies were reported to the Department of Public Safety around 2:40 a.m. on Saturday, April 5. The first robbery occurred within the 700 block of North 18th Street at approximately 2:29 a.m. on Saturday, April 5. The second robbery occurred within the 1700 block of West Kilbourn Avenue at approximately 2:35 a.m. on Saturday, April 5. In both incidents, which are believed to be related, one male suspect approached the victims, including two Marquette students and one person not affiliated with Marquette, and demanded personal property. No weapon was displayed. During the first incident, the suspect implied he had a weapon by placing his hand in his pocket and demanded personal property. The victims refused to hand over their property and the suspect fled the area. During the second incident, the suspect grabbed the victim’s shoulder demanding personal property, the victim threw the property and the suspect fled the area with it. None of the victims was physically injured. The Department of Public Safety and the Milwaukee Police Department immediately responded to both incidents. Victim services have been offered to those involved.

The suspect in both incidents is described as follows:

Black male, 5’8” to 5’10” tall, mid twenties, dark complexion, small build, clean shaven wearing a dark colored sweatshirt.

Anyone having information about these incidents is encouraged to contact the Milwaukee Police Department at 414-935-7360 or Marquette Department of Public Safety at 414-288-6800.

As we have observed, these incidents show the inherent problems of being located in the central city of a large metropolitan area.

They also show that Marquette has a very strong interest in reducing crime in the city of Milwaukee.

Unfortunately, the approaches that are likely to do that (increased incarceration, aggressive policing) are politically incorrect. Thus Marquette will continue to be at best irrelevant, and at worst part of the problem.

Yet Another Armed Robbery at Marquette

From an e-mail sent to everyone in the Marquette community.

Public Safety Update

The Department of Public Safety apprehended five suspects within minutes of an armed robbery that occurred early Friday morning in the 2000 block of W. Wisconsin Avenue. The victim, a Marquette student, was approached by the suspects while walking alone and shown a weapon. The suspects took the victim’s personal possessions and fled on foot. The victim was not physically injured and immediately entered a nearby building to call Public Safety. Public Safety officers immediately responded and were able to catch the suspects. All five suspects are now in police custody. Milwaukee Police do not believe that this incident is related to any previous incident involving Marquette students.

Public Safety reports that the surveillance cameras in place in the area were key in locating the suspects quickly. More than 300 cameras located on- and off-campus provide constant surveillance footage to the Command Information Center located in the Public Safety headquarters.

All members of the Marquette community are reminded to make use of the university’s numerous safety resources and not to walk alone after dark. These services include door-to-door LIMO service, the LIMO Express shuttle, or Public Safety foot patrols. More than 200 blue light phones around campus are also available to call for an escort or to report suspicious activity at any time.

In addition, students leaving town for Spring Break are encouraged to take advantage of Public Safety’s Vacant House Watch program so that their residence can be monitored while they are away. Call Public Safety at 288-6800 for more information.

This is just the most recent in a spate of robberies around Marquette.

Indeed, although Marquette officials refuse to use the word, kidnapping was involved in the previous ones.

Brian Collar at GOP3 has been keeping track of this issue.

Back in the early 1990s, then Marquette President Albert DiUlio felt the need to deal with the perception that Marquette was a dangerous place, and did so by dumping millions of Marquette’s money into a program called “Campus Circle” -- a redevelopment plan that made the area adjacent to Marquette more attractive at horrendous cost.

It seemed to “work,” or at least the bad publicity died down.

But in reality a campus near a dangerous area of a dangerous city is never going to be as safe as a campus in some bucolic rural area.

But the situation in Milwaukee is made worse by the rather lax attitude civic elites have toward law enforcement.

We wonder whether the “social justice” crowd at Marquette will decide that muggers, robbers and kidnappers ought to be punished, or whether they will continue to wring their hands when punishment disproportionately falls on black criminals.

In fact, all five suspects in this particular case were black males. The e-mail doesn’t say that -- something that might be justified given that none of them were still at large. But it’s relevant if we want to understand the crime problem at Marquette. Being located near the inner city is no fun.

This situation should test the old saying that “a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.”

Well, “social justice” advocates, what will it be?

Milwaukee’s Top Cop: Chief Ed Flynn at Marquette

It was the latest in a series of talks given at the Marquette Law School: Milwaukee Chief of Police Edward Flynn. After a light lunch, provided by the Law School, we settled in and looked up our computer and the room filled up.

[Live Blog Begins]

12:15 -- Mike Gousha introduces Flynn.

Gousha: “give us your impressions of our city”

Chief: There is a “communal will” to make things better.

Gousha: Why Milwaukee? A lot of people would want to flee.

Chief: I “want to be somewhere that all you abilities will be throughly challenged.” Quotes English scholar who says that how the laws are written is less important than how the laws are enforced.

Milwaukee a city with “significant challenges” and “significant opportunities.”

Gousha: Is this a “daunting task?”

Chief: You should have the opportunity of having daunting tasks. Challenges of this community are not unique, the are part of the “urban fabric of America.”

Big challenge is winning the confidence of communities that need them the most. There are issues to overcome in those communities.

Gousha: Do you feel pressure?

Chief: my job is to be an “enabler.” Responsibility both to motivate and to restrain. We have a culture with very many positive attributes.

There is an imbalance in perceptions. People who have good experiences with the cops tell six people. People who have bad experiences tell 17 or 18 people.

Gousha: Define “success” for me.

Chief: numbers are important, but they only tell about the end state. Somewhere in the accounting we have lost track of the real purpose: an “orderly civic environment.” Wants “orderly public places.” A decrease in arrests can mean you are succeeding. You may have reduced crime (“suppression”) which has reduced arrests.

Citizens attitudes are important. Neighborhood cohesion is good. In some of the worst neighborhoods, nobody is out on the street with a baby carriage because it isn’t safe.

Gousha: What was your reaction to FBI statistics released yesterday? [These showed violent crime nationwide to be down, but Milwaukee crime to be up.]

Chief: Points to lag in FBI statistics. Numbers just released show the picture the first half of 2007. They may not compare Milwaukee to comparable cities. In Springfield, there was a dip in violent crime, and he [Flynn] was a hero. Then there was an upward spike. Bad news.

Gousha: A big problem here, petty disputes that escalate.

Chief: Some things that “only stable families and stable communities” can achieve. It takes a village to raise a child, but the police can help produce the “village.” Local organizations can function well if the community is safe.

Mentions out of wedlock birth rate. Poverty rate.

But these are not an excuse for misconduct.

Cops need to “take on the generation of young men who are creating the problems.”

Maybe the next generation can be helped.

Gousha: You said “you want to get beyond the stale debate of police versus community.”

Chief: Society has changed dramatically since I was in grade school and high school. Things have gotten better. Cops are better trained and more diverse than ever before.

He objects to scapegoating cops based on one or a few examples of misconduct.

There is a lot of community demand for tougher policing. Neighborhoods say “give us more cops,” but then cops do something people object to and “all of a sudden it’s 1965 and I’m Bull Connor.”

For example: cops are taught to keep themselves safe, but this can be scary if you see it.

Gousha: are communities going to interact more with cops on the beat.

Chief: Demands for service make this hard. “Wholesale” vs. “Retail” policing. The former involves keeping public spaces safe. The latter involved calls for service from individuals.

Community needs to understand that there is a tradeoff. People may have to understand that they may get less in personal service if they want gangs on corner, graffiti, etc. taken care of.

Gousha: What should you do about illegal immigration.

Chief: “Stick our fingers in our ears and do our job.” Caring about border security is certainly legitimate, but on the other hand immigration has been good for America.

If I find somebody bleeding that speaks Spanish in the street, is my first question “what is your immigration status?”

[Flynn seems less the politically correct liberal than a bureaucrat who wants to get his job done, and resents external demands that interfer with his core task.]

Flynn adds that were actual criminal activity by illegals is at issue, he’s happy to cooperate with whoever can get the person off the street. [Implicitly including Federal immigration officials.]

Gousha: Is this a “springboard job?”

Chief: I’m committed to stay here for four years. Why did I consider leaving Springfield? “It’s your fault!” Milwaukee people came to me.

Gousha: What about your experience going to Catholic schools.

Chief: It made you very disposed to feel very guilty, and inclined to accept people in police uniforms telling you what to do. [laughter]

Important to have an ideal. Important to have a noble purpose. “When I looked a policing I see a noble enterprise.”

A liberal arts background is a great preparation for dealing with people.

Not a fan of Criminal Justice undergraduate majors.

Enjoyed graduate school. Danger of cop work, you can become “a burnt out cynic.”

Faced a lot of hatred as a cop in the early 70s. Came to understand that cops bond because of common danger.

[Audience Questioning Begins]

Question: Common Grounds initiative

Chief: An experiment in one district right now. We as an agency haven’t embraced it as much as we might. Involves “negotiating” with trouble makers in neighborhoods, but this doesn’t involve making concessions to them. [It sounds more like laying out consequences.]

Question: What about training for community policing?

Chief: Police need problem solving training. Need to get behind the incidents. If a given bar is a source of continued trouble, maybe the owner needs to do some things differently. Cops need to understand neighborhood norms. “Law enforcement” is just part of the job. More of the job is “policing.”

[He seems to mean that the latter involves the totality of keeping neighborhoods safe.]

Question: poverty is high in Milwaukee.

Chief: It’s more likely for crime to cause poverty than for poverty to cause crime. [!!!]

Kids are afraid to go to school (dangerous), afraid to appear “smart” in class. People do not take jobs after dark because it’s unsafe to get to work. We can have an impact on that.

Can we have an effect on the “macro situation” – people having babies, guys abandoning their families, etc. ?

Question: How much doing your own thing, and how much following the lead of other agencies.

Chief: “one of the great things about crime in Milwaukee is that there is enough for everybody.” [laughter]. What we are doing is both.

“We are going to be pushing authority down to the district.”

Question [public defender]: many times young Hispanics and blacks are stopped by police, sometimes without good reason. Perception: “police are an occupying force.” Admits a police interest in maintaining public order is legitimate.

Chief: You have outlined the trade-off here. One of the tools we have is approaching people and asking “who are you and what are you doing here.” We get calls all the time from people saying “I’m afraid to walk down the street because of those guys hanging around.” We have to be professional, but protect public order.

Intervening in minor misbehavior has an effect on street crime. Writing a lot of traffic tickets reduces crime.

Encourages cops to say “hello” to people who are known to be offenders. Encouraged that in Springfield. Wants more interaction with people who make cause problems – but in a respectful way.

Question: what about young people. I’m a mentor of a young kid in the inner city. What do I do encourage him to go into law enforcement.

Chief: I can only say what his mom says: “stay in school, get a diploma.” Maybe technical school is good, wakes up the brain and good things happen.

Policing is the “constant exercise of decision under stress.” We need a maturity of judgment beyond the years of young cops.

Neighborhoods need to reach out to cops just as cops need to reach out to neighborhoods..

Education is essential, it’s a judgment job.

Question: what kind manager do you intend to be? Do you delegate, or do you expect to be out on the street?

Chief: somewhere in the middle. I want to delegate. But I want to see people working too. Wants authority to be delegated down to the level where judgment is made.

Question: Packers or Patriots?

Chief: “You’re asking me whether I’m going to be rooting for the world champion . . . ”

Gousha: “The honeymoon here [in Milwaukee] could be short!” [laughter]

[End Live Blog]

Evaluation

Flynn is basically conservative, and highly sophisticated. He doesn’t seem to care for race hustlers (remember the “all of a sudden it’s 1965 and I’m Bull Connor” comment), but is intensely concerned with the quality of life in “the communities that need [the cops] the most.” He sees getting the respect and cooperation of high crime communities as a “challenge,” but has no illusions about who the good guys and the bad guys are. The cops are the good guys. Law abiding citizens are the good guys.

He passed up several opportunities to agree with simplistic platitudes. He insisted that crime can cause poverty, contrary to the politically correct doctrine that anti-poverty programs rather than cops are what we need more of. He insisted that people who want cops on the beat and highly visible in public spaces may have to accept a lower level of personal service. Maybe people shouldn’t call 911 for every little problem. He could have blandly promised that citizens can have it both ways.

He seemed to understand the role of family structure in producing crime, and even the role of what political scientists call “social capital” -- a network of robust community institutions.

Overarching all of this was a concern for police professionalism.

Can he make things better? Who knows. He’s a guy at the top of a large bureaucracy in a city with large swaths of territory dominated by a culture that creates crime. But if anybody has a shot at it, it’s Flynn.

[Update]

Here, courtesy of the Law School, is the podcast of the talk.

Milwaukee’s Top Cop to Speak at Marquette Tomorrow

From the Marquette Law School, and Mike Gousha’s “On the Issues” series:

Thursday, January 10—Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn—Here’s your opportunity to meet the city’s new top cop. Chief Ed Flynn left Springfield, Massachusetts, to come to Milwaukee, where he faces a persistent violent crime problem and high expectations. Learn more about the new Chief’s crime-fighting strategies. January 10, 2008, 12:15 to 1:15 p.m., Sensenbrenner Hall, Room 325.

The series, so far, has been excellent. And anybody interested in Milwaukee criminal justice issues will probably find this event worthwhile.

Note: do not just show up. Registration is required, and is easily done via this web page.

There is ample space at the moment, and people from the community are welcome.

How Dangerous is Milwaukee?

Congressional Quarterly has released rankings of the “safest cities” in the United States.

Inverting the list, we find that the most dangerous city is Detroit (number 378), followed by St. Louis, MO, Flint, MI, Oakland, CA, Camden, NJ, Birmingham, AL, North Charleston, SC, Memphis, TN, Richmond, CA and Cleveland, OH.

Milwaukee is rated 343. Not good.

Among the most dangerous cities above 500,000 population, Milwaukee is ranked seventh behind: (1) Detroit, MI (2) Memphis, TN (3) Baltimore, MD (4) Philadelphia, PA (5) Washington, DC and (6) Dallas, TX.

In terms of safety, the Milwaukee metropolitan area ranks 230 out of 333. Not terrible. The worst problems are in the City of Milwaukee.

Can we now get past political correctness, and start taking crime seriously?

No Racial Bias in Decisions of Milwaukee County District Attorney

This morning Wayne McKenzie of the VERA Institute presented the results of a large-scale study of decision-making in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office at the Marquette Law School. A small crowd including several Marquette Law School students, a few “community activists,” a couple of Marquette faculty and District Attorney John Chisholm was present.

The study included 52,784 felony and misdemeanor accusations brought to the District Attorney’s office in calendar year 2006.

There are many points in the criminal justice process at which racial discrimination might show itself, including the decision to prosecute (the DA’s office simply declines to prosecute some cases), the decision as to what charges are appropriate, the decision as to what plea bargain to offer (over 90% of cases are plea bargained), and what sentence to recommend for a guilty offender.

The VERA institute studied one of these: “declination,” the decision not to prosecute a particular person accused by the cops of a crime.

The results were virtually identical by race. 40% of the misdemeanor charges against whites were not prosecuted, and 40% of such charges against non-whites were likewise declined. Where felonies were concerned, the declination rate was 32% for whites, and 33% for non-whites. That’s about as equal as you can get.

Of course, equality in the aggregate can mask fairly serious disparities in specific cases, so the VERA Institute “drilled down” to see whether specific categories of crime showed a pattern of racial inequality.

There was one, although it was a fairly minor one.

VERA found that in cases of possession of drug paraphernalia (a misdemeanor) 41% of the time whites were not prosecuted for the crime, but in only 27% of the cases was prosecution of cases against non-whites declined.

Does this suggest racism at work? It would be odd if prosecutors who are fair in dealing with the vast majority of offenses put on their white sheets and turn into Klansmen for this one kind of offense.

District Attorney Chisholm investigated, and found that the very junior and inexperienced prosecutors in the misdemeanor unit were looking at cases where black drug offenders had large numbers of prior offenses, and deciding to go ahead with prosecution.

It wasn’t racism, it was a racially neutral process operating to the detriment of (mostly) black offenders.

So that means there isn’t a problem, right?

Even a racially fair process has to pass a cost-benefit test, and Chisholm argued convincingly that prosecution of this particular offense doesn’t meet it (except in unusual cases, such as when the person charged is a known gang leader). Not only is this charge difficult to prove in court, the typical sentence is only a month in jail, if it involves incarceration at all.

These offenders, for the most part, are addicts (drug dealing is a felony), and aren’t going to be helped by the sentence.

Chisholm has responded to this situation by merging the felony and misdemeanor units, such that more experienced prosecutors get to look at these cases.

As the debate over the supposed “disproportionate” incarceration of blacks in Wisconsin continues, we can point to this case as an example of doing things right. Former District Attorney E. Michael McCann initiated a study that was clearly a bit politically risky. The study mostly vindicated his office (since occupied by Chisholm), but when one area of questionable practice was found, the DA moved decisively to fix it.

Things are supposed to work like that, although they rarely seem to.

Does Wisconsin Lock Up Too Many Blacks?

Our article is finally out.

In it, we challenge the notion that widespread racial discrimination is the reason for the fact that blacks are disproportionately imprisoned in Wisconsin.

Why are blacks disproportionately imprisoned? Because they commit more crimes.

Of course, we can’t rule out the possibility that, somewhere in the system, there is some racism. Of course, there may also be some racial affirmative action, with black offenders getting more lenient treatment. But on the whole, the prison population in Wisconsin looks about like the population of people who commit crimes.

Exhibit One: The Racial Disparity Index

Blacks, compared to whites, are much more likely to be locked up in Wisconsin. In fact, Wisconsin has one of the highest disparity ratios in the nation. But in reality, Wisconsin is about where it should be in relation to other states.

If one looks at disparity ratios, one finds that:

(1.) They are high were a large portion of the black population lives in the central cities of Metropolitan Statistical Areas. As blogger James Harris is fond of saying, “it’s the culture, stupid.” This is why the South has low disparity ratios.

(2.) They are higher where a large portion of the black population lives in poverty, and. . .

(3.) They are lower when a large portion of the white population lives in poverty (where more whites commit crimes, they drive down the disparity ratio).

When one creates a statistical model taking these factors into account, Wisconsin actually has a somewhat lower racial disparity index than one would expect.

Exhibit Two: Time Served in Prison

We looked at people released from prison in Wisconsin during the years 1998-2002. Are blacks kept in prison longer for the same offenses? We found that, controlling for gender, Hispanic ethnicity and having served a previous sentence, blacks served essentially the same sentence for a violent crime, but about five months less for a property crime. For a drug crime, black offenders served about 1.5 months less than a white would.

Exhibit Three: Prison Admissions

Using data from 1998-2002, we produced a statistical model of prison admission by county in Wisconsin as a function of the number of reported crimes. There was, of course, an absurdly strong relationship: more reported crimes meant more people thrown into prison.

We then added to the model the number of blacks in the population of each county. If blacks are disproportionately imprisoned, counties with a large number of blacks should show more prison admissions, even holding the number of crimes constant.

For property crimes, this indeed was the case, suggesting a bias against blacks where property crimes are concerned. But remember (see above) this is counterbalanced by the fact that blacks serve shorter sentences for property crimes.

Where violent crimes were concerned, more blacks in a county produced fewer prison admissions, even after controlling for the number of reported crimes. This suggests that black offenders get off a bit easier than whites.

Exhibit Four: Do “Less Qualified” Blacks Get Imprisoned?

Here, we looked at the number of prior felony convictions of people admitted to the Wisconsin prison system during 2001-2006. Prior felony convictions have a huge effect on whether an offender will get prison (as opposed to probation), and on the length of the sentence imposed.

If blacks are victims of discrimination, we would expect that more of the blacks admitted to prison would have no prior convictions. That is to say, if you are black you can get thrown into prison even though you are less “qualified” for prison than a white. Consider it a bizarre affirmative action program.

But in reality, 48.2% of the whites admitted to prison in Wisconsin have no prior felony convictions, while only 37.5% of blacks have no prior felony convictions. It is, apparently, easier for a white to get thrown into the slammer than a black.

Exhibit Five: Who Commits More Crimes?

If blacks are “over represented” in the prison population in Wisconsin, is this the result of discrimination? It’s not if blacks are equally over represented among those who commit crimes.

Most crime statistics do not provide the race of the offender, but a new system of reporting -- the Incident Based Reporting System used by the Milwaukee Police Department -- does. When we analyze that data, we find that blacks in the city of Milwaukee commit violent crimes at eight times the rate of whites.

(The race of the offender is missing most of the time where property crimes are concerned, so we can’t do any meaningful analysis of those.)

It is difficult to know whether blacks are over incarcerated in Milwaukee County, since the incident reporting data applies only to the city of Milwaukee, and prison admissions data are available only from Milwaukee County. If we knew the proportion of all offenses in the suburbs committed by blacks, we could figure this out. But we don’t, so we can’t.

Still, eight to one is a pretty lopsided ratio. It makes it obvious that most (and perhaps all) of the “over incarceration” of blacks is the result of blacks doing more crimes.

Conclusion

We make some additional points in the article, especially about the fact that the vast majority of the victims of black crime are themselves black. Wanting to keep black criminals out of prison is, in effect, to want more blacks victimized.

But a large part of the black political establishment, like the white liberal establishment, seems to want that. Maybe they haven’t thought of the issue in this way. But if they haven’t, why haven’t they?

Life in the Central City

An eloquent post on The National Conversation shows what life in the inner city is like.

Blogger James Harris recounts what happened when he went out to walk his dog.

I made it a whole block and a half before I hit trouble. The ambulance was already rushing the wounded away as the police were cleaning up the mess.

The dog and I continued on to the constant sounds of pops and cracks. Firecrackers? A few weeks ago I guessed wrong and walked up on a gunfight that had just taken place in the house I was passing.

Life is a box of chocolates…

Two blocks into my walk I ran into a man and his two sons. They were standing near the sidewalk in the front yard of their beautifully manicured lawn. The gentleman said “Labrador Poodle, right?”

Right.

My designer dog is big now, but he is very friendly. Sort of defeats the purpose but, whatever. The gentleman and I chit chat for a minute then I say goodbye. As I am walking away the man stops me and asks, “Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure, how can I help you?”

“Will you pray for me. . . ? That little girl? The one that was shot in the head? That’s my daughter.”

I say nothing.

“She’s in Children’s Hospital right now. Her head is as big this.” He makes his hands in the shape of a small watermelon. “They can’t take the bullet out until the swelling goes down. Pray for her, please, and for my family, too.”

Harris, who is a Christian, doubtless has prayed for the man and his daughter. But we can’t blame him for being stunned and mute in a situation like this. We would be too.