The New Sheriff in Town

×

Expand

Photo by Tom Jenz

Denita Ball

Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball

Over the past generation, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office has been controversial. Sheriff David Clarke served from 2002-2017 and took a hard-nosed approach to law enforcement. In late 2018, Earnell Lucas was elected sheriff, and had to deal with protests and unrest over the George Floyd murder and a creeping critique of police officers. Lucas chose not to run for reelection. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Sheriff’s Office faces the challenge of increasing criminal activity, speeding, and reckless driving.

Enter Denita Ball, who ran for sheriff unopposed in the August primary and became acting sheriff with Lucas’ resignation in October. Her first term will begin on Jan. 2, 2023. I wanted to learn about her management style and the future of policing in Milwaukee County. I met her in her Downtown office in the Milwaukee County Safety Building. 

Ball is quite tall, and presents a strong presence, but her demeanor is soft spoken and sincere. I got the sense that she wants to change the climate of the Sheriff’s Office to be more open and available to city leaders and the public. 

You are an accomplished individual, having led a remarkable life. You’ve overcome very difficult obstacles including the death of your devoted grandmother, then being a foster child, and later defeating cancer, to name a few of those obstacles. Tell me about your history, where you grew up, your parents, neighborhoods and schools you attended.  

I’m from a small town, Crossett, Arkansas, less than 7,000 residents. I was born to a single mom. My mom wasn’t prepared to raise a child, and so my grandmother raised me. She laid the foundation of faith in God, the importance of an education and hard work. I remember her spending $500 on encyclopedias and Childcraft books so I could learn about the world.

When I was 12, she passed, and that was hard on me. My mom was in the picture, but she was living in Milwaukee. I was fostered by my friend’s family in my neighborhood. My first job was at age 9, mowing the church lawn. I also worked part time cleaning a truck rest stop. In high school, I was popular, easy to get along with, and joined a lot of activities. After high school, I got an academic scholarship to the University of Arkansas Fayetteville and graduated with honors with a degree in Criminal Justice. My plan was to work in probation or be a parole officer.

How did you end up in Milwaukee and make a career in law enforcement? Take me through your career path, the various jobs you held and finally how you became the next Sheriff of Milwaukee County.

After college, I moved to Milwaukee because I needed to help take care of my mom who was sick. There were no openings in probation/parole, so I worked at a bank Monday through Saturday mornings. Saturday and Sunday evenings, I worked in an internship program at a factory. I ended up applying at the Milwaukee Police Department and became a police officer. My plan was to work as a police officer for five years and then go to law school.

I was hired in 1985, and after I completed the training academy and my field training program, I was transferred to District 2 on Lincoln Avenue, the south side. It was mostly white residents back then. Women were still new to policing. I was later assigned to District 5 on Locust Street on the North Side. I did not end up going to law school because I enjoyed being a police officer and making a difference in the lives of others.

Along the way, I was promoted several ranks, and I also earned my master’s degree from UWM in criminal justice administration. After 25 years as a police officer, I retired from the Milwaukee Police Department at the rank of deputy inspector and was hired by Bryant & Stratton College to teach criminal justice classes, and I managed their entire criminal justice program for all three  locations. Meanwhile, I was teaching at Cardinal Stritch where I earned my Ph.D. in educational leadership.  

At some point in your journey, you were diagnosed with cancer. Can you share that experience?

That was in 2008. It was Stage 4 breast cancer and a very scary time. During surgery, the doctor found it had spread into my lymph nodes. Some of the lymph nodes were removed, and I had aggressive chemotherapy and radiation. I also had a left breast mastectomy. But I am here today, cancer free.  

Then eventually, you got back into policing on the county level. How did that come about?

In 2018, Sheriff-Elect Earnell Lucas asked if I’d run the day-to-day operations of the department as his chief deputy sheriff. In 2019, I started my new job. When Sheriff Lucas decided to run for mayor and not run again as sheriff, he told me I should consider running for sheriff. I’d never run for elective office, but I gave it a try and won the primary election in August and will be unopposed in November.

What types of criminal behavior is the County Sheriff’s Office responsible for as compared to the city police?

We are responsible for crimes committed at the airport, and on state and county roads—speeding, reckless driving, accidents, auto thefts, shootings, etc. We are also responsible for policing the county parks. We cover the courthouse, and we oversee the Downtown county jail and the administrative office where you and I are now. We will also help the various municipal departments in the county when needed.

Recently, I did a story on Chantell Jewell, Superintendent of the County House of Correction in Franklin. She gave me a tour of the jail. It is very large but functional. What is the difference between your Downtown jail and her Franklin jail? Both are county jails, right?  

The House of Correction in Franklin handles persons who have been sentenced to serve jail time for minor offenses and have been sentenced to a year or less. Generally, they are not violent crimes. We house pre-sentenced arrestees until they go to court, are sentenced, or are released either on their own recognizance or have posted bail. Presently, we have close to 200 persons in our care who have been charged with homicide and are waiting to go to trial. These homicide defendants will probably be in our custody for two to three years. We presently have a total of 915 jail occupants. Our capacity maximum is 960. Keep in mind we are responsible for both city and county arrestees who are brought to our jail.  

In my article on the Public Defenders Office, I asked veteran public defender Jeff Schwarz if criminals with mental health problems should be placed in a state institution. Jeff told me, and I quote, “In Wisconsin, there are two state mental institutions, Mendota in Madison and Winnebago in Oshkosh. If a client is found mentally incompetent or not guilty by reason of mental disease, they have to wait in the local county jail until there is an opening in a state institution. The jail is filled with people who are mentally ill because they can’t get into the state institutions which are at capacity.” Would you say this is true?

Yes, this is true. But our Downtown jail does have a mental health program where mental health professionals help our occupants who’ve been deemed mentally incompetent. We do not want to make them wait for treatment until there is an opening at a state mental health facility. We start the treatment while they are in our jail waiting to have their day in court and for a bed to become available in a state mental facility. Wellpath HealthCare is our contracted health provider. Their staff work on our mental health floor, which is a separate area from the general jail population. We work in tandem with the Wellpath personnel to make sure those with mental health needs are being met.

I’ve read that as the chief deputy sheriff for Milwaukee County, you have played a pivotal part of the significant improvements that have been made in the department, including turning around the formerly poor safety conditions in the county jail. What changes were made?

The main thing is that we changed health providers to Wellpath because our previous health provider was not meeting the needs of our jail population. Then, we also increased the number of staff to give top notch humane treatment to residents. We were certified by the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare and received the Gold Standard Rating.

I know that people of color are over-represented in the criminal justice system. In fact, Milwaukee County has one of the highest per capita incarceration rates for Black men in the country. Do you see racial disparities in the jail system? 

The jail population is mirroring the victims of crimes in our neighborhoods and those who are committing them. So yes, our jail is filled with an over-representation of African Americans. 

What needs to be improved about the County Sheriff’s Office after you take office? 

A major priority is to ensure we have enough staffing. For example, because of a shortage of jail staff, we currently are using 20 deputies to temporarily work as correction officers in our jail. That means those deputies in the jail are not working at the airport, in the parks or patrolling our roads.

Are you not able to hire quality people to staff the jail?

We are, but their salaries are too low. For example, Racine raised their starting salary to nearly $30 per hour, and they are fully staffed. Recently, we received an increase of $3 per hour, but that only raises our people’s salary to $24 per hour.

Let me bring up some controversy. Ryan Clancy is presently a county supervisor. He wrote this to me, “Chief Deputy Ball testified in front of the Judiciary and Law Enforcement Committee in July that committee members would finally have access to the cells and common areas at the jail. This was after over a year of denied requests. But leadership has refused to reply to written requests to set up a date for that access. Previous tours have only included the administrative area, not the common areas. I get emails reporting inhumane conditions.”

I dispute a lot of what the supervisor stated, particularly his use of “finally” and denied requests. Supervisor Clancy must have forgotten that he has had two tours of the jail. The first was with Supervisor Sumner and the second was with County Supervisor Haas. I was on his last tour with Supervisor Haas, Supervisor Clancy did have an opportunity to tour the common areas of the jail, including the booking room, the property area, a housing unit floor, and other housing units. This tour was via high definition cameras in our administrative area. The only reason he did not go to the cell area was because of COVID precautions. Also, if they wanted to, the jail occupants who were vaccinated were able to talk with them and did so for over an hour. 

Just to get this straight, county supervisors are allowed to visit the jail, right?

Correct. County supervisors can visit the jail. For example, recently Supervisor Vincent was given a tour, and we have extended the invitation to others. However, with our staffing issues, there are safety concerns. Another thing: The impression that some people are giving is that we are mistreating our occupants, and we are preventing political leaders from seeing what is going on in the jail. That is not the case! Also, remember that currently crime in the city and county is through the roof, and we need the police and a strong system of justice. The county supervisors should work with us because we all want a safe environment for our citizens. Just so it’s clear, many of them do work with us. I will leave it at that.

What would you say is the most challenging part of the job as county sheriff?

I think the most challenging part is dealing with the different stakeholders who are looking at law enforcement from their lenses instead of seeing it from our viewpoint. We are looking at how we deploy our resources to the public, and the public needs to receive the services they pay for with their taxes. We work with the county board and the supervisors who sometimes question our effectiveness and ask for various reports. We are responsible for public safety. If there is not public safety, people will not utilize the county parks. If there is not public safety, we will not get people to visit our various communities. Remember, tourists and visitors spend money, which helps expand our economy.