There are just a few dozen Milwaukeeans who are true leaders in their fields. Count among this group Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, who in the past 10 years has transformed his office from one that responded to crime to one that is actively working to reduce criminal behavior by addressing its root causes. As a result of Chisholm’s hard work, Milwaukee County’s district attorney’s office is viewed as a national model to many people on both sides of the political aisle who want to see meaningful reform.
Chisholm, who will be on the Aug. 9 Democratic primary ballot along with attorney Verona Swanigan, has worked with criminal justice reformers across the country to develop these new models and learn from others’ experiences. As a result, he’s using data to determine the most effective strategies to address those accused of committing crimes; placed prosecutors throughout the community so they have a better understanding of neighborhood residents and dynamics; is providing low-level offenders with opportunities for treatment instead of sending them to jail; launched a witness protection program; is a strong supporter of the Sojourner Family Peace Center for families coping with domestic violence; and helped to secure a $2 million John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant to create programs that keep those with mental illnesses out of jail and provide them with the supports they need.
In addition to these reforms, Chisholm’s prosecutors are busy in the courtroom with the cases involving the most serious, violent offenders. During his tenure, the DA’s office has a 95% conviction rate in homicide cases, and he also said he’s especially proud of the work his domestic violence prosecutors are doing to achieve justice for these victims.
At the same time he’s combatting crime in Milwaukee County, Chisholm is one of three state prosecutors who are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review last summer’s Wisconsin Supreme Court decision shutting down the John Doe investigation into Gov. Scott Walker’s ties to allegedly independent special-interest groups. The high court will decide in September if they will take on the case, which raises critical issues about campaign finance and the right to a fair trial. There’s no doubt that the individuals and the special interest groups on the other side of the John Doe suit will work to defeat Chisholm in his bid for re-election in August.
|
|
Chisholm, with his 18-year-old son Ted in tow, sat down with the Shepherd last week to discuss his reforms, how we can reduce the tension between the police and the community, and why the John Doe case is so important. Here’s an excerpt of our interview.
Shepherd: Why are you seeking another term?
Chisholm: I think this is an absolutely critical time in the criminal justice system, not just at the local level, but at the national level. The experience that I bring to it is critically needed at this juncture and in this community. Quite frankly, I think this is a historical moment. It reminds me greatly of the interest and attention and energy that existed in the late ’60s around the criminal justice system. You could also argue that some of the decisions that were made back in the late ’60s really shaped the direction of law enforcement for decades to come. Some of those were very unfortunate. Some of it was positive, but some of it was very unfortunate.
One of the unfortunate aspects of it was that it really created a perception in the public that all of society’s problems could be handled by the criminal justice system acting alone and that the primary method of dealing with societal issues was to lock people up and have a punitive response to everything.
We’ve come a long way since then. I’ve been trying to lead the efforts in criminal justice reform locally but also at the national level. I think there is a growing understanding and, quite frankly, a desperate need now that I think both sides are recognizing. You look at the events of the last week [police shootings in Baton Rouge, La., and St. Paul, Minn., and the sniper shooting of police officers in Dallas] and it really crystalizes the issue. The issue is, how does a society maximize freedom and yet still enforce the social compact? And prosecutors play a huge role in doing that. We have to make sure that we treat the people we serve with dignity and respect and yet at the same time keep them safe.
The dynamic that’s unfolding across the country right now is that oftentimes people that need that relationship with law enforcement and the criminal justice system, because of the conditions they’re living in, they distrust the system the most. That’s the fundamental issue that has to be addressed and that’s why I so fundamentally believe in community-based policing and prosecution that actually puts prosecutors right into the communities that are experiencing the most concentrated disadvantage and therefore disproportionately have needs that oftentimes end up in the criminal justice system, whether they should or they shouldn’t. That includes drug addiction, mental illness, alcohol addiction, people behaving immaturely, making immature decisions, particularly our young people, that result in contact with the system.
So one of the commitments I’ve made in the past 10 years is to develop a system that does a much more effective job of identifying people that really need to be in the system versus those who can be safely accounted for using other community resources, whether that’s public health resources or mental health resources, treatment opportunities, opportunities to avoid criminal convictions so that they can seek and maintain employment. Those are absolutely critical to reducing a very real issue, which is disparities, racial disparities, in the system, as well as the long-term consequences of criminal justice involvement.
At the same time, I believe strongly that it frees up resources that you need to put into dangerous offenders. Obviously, one of my core responsibilities is to address people who are hurting other people. Again, that can be done through traditional prosecution means and needs to be done that way at times for violent gun offenders, sexual offenders, but even in that realm I believe strongly that it’s not good enough to say our job is just to be the emergency room. I feel strongly, particularly with the issue of violence, that it’s a learned behavior and we have to think in terms of addressing issues like family violence and the environmental conditions that young kids are exposed to that create the thinking that leads to violent behavior or becoming victims of violence.
Shepherd: We’re meeting after a very deadly week, one in which we’re having a national conversation about policing strategies, racial disparities and guns. How do you, as a prosecutor, make sure that our law enforcement officers are treating people fairly but are also able to protect the community as well?
Chisholm: This is the unique obligation of every elected prosecutor and everybody that a prosecutor hires. It has to start with a firm guiding principle that we are here to do two things: Keep people safe but do so in a way that respects their constitutional liberties and, beyond that, respects them as fellow citizens.
We are operating under this system that structures things to believe that you can solve all of these problems with more police officers and prosecutors and courts and corrections. But what has happened is that I think we have diminished the concept of citizenship—particularly, for those who have become involved in the criminal justice system. That’s the first thing I can do, is to set a culture within my office that respects victims and defendants equally and respects all people that come into the system.
Secondly, I can try to redefine what the role of a prosecutor is. That’s actually based on an ethical obligation now. The case-processing model is really what dominates the American criminal justice system. It’s almost an assembly line. The police arrest, we determine whether we can prove, and then you’re off and running. So my belief has always been that prosecutors have to be problem-solvers. Now that’s actually been adopted by the American Bar Association, which says that elected prosecutors cannot simply be case processors, that they have an obligation to work with the community to help solve problems.
That means that you have to start thinking in terms of root causes. When you start doing that, that starts changing the relationship you have with the community. That’s what drives me to support things like the Sojourner Family Peace Center. It’s what drove me to advocate and take leadership over the issue of reducing the number of people who were in our jails and prisons from Milwaukee by focusing on early interventions and deferred prosecutions and full-blown drug treatment for the clinically addicted. Under my leadership and my advocacy, we were able to go from having nothing in 2006 to by 2009 having all parts of that in place.
When you look at the data statewide and local data since that time we’ve seen dramatic reductions in admissions to jail and admissions from Milwaukee, particularly among the African American population, particularly for drug-related offenses and public order offenses and things like that. And it happened at the same time that we saw some of our historically low rates of violent crime.
Shepherd: What are the biggest challenges you’re facing right now?
Chisholm: The single largest challenge I face is trying to continue to advocate to fellow criminal justice system partners and the community that we have an obligation to continue on this path of doing a much better job of who should stay in the system and who should be allowed to get help in the community. That argument becomes really difficult when you have upticks in violent crime like we experienced last year and to a certain extent are still experiencing. But, we’re down about 30% in homicides to date this year so that’s a good sign. We’ve seen a downtick in nonfatal shootings. But they’re still way too high.
The ultimate challenge, and this plays into what we’re seeing nationally as well, is that we just have to acknowledge in major cities that have major populations that have lived now for three or four generations in concentrated disadvantage that law enforcement has become the default primary responder to all of those issues that arise out of there. Deep poverty, limited educational opportunities, environmental issues like exposure to lead and certainly to violence, lack of economic opportunities and the lack of real investment in specific neighborhoods breed the conditions that lead to calling the police a lot. And when you call the police a lot and you couple that with a population that is heavily, heavily armed—that’s just the reality—in my opinion it’s gotten worse with the passage of the recent laws, not just at the state level but nationally, and then you have police officers trying to respond to it, you have fear on both sides and that’s what needs to be changed. That’s the challenge locally and nationally—to have meaningful, tough discussions about how we change that sense of fear that exists on both sides. We’re not going to do it by retrenching and rehashing the same old arguments we’ve had for years.
Shepherd: Right now Milwaukee is experiencing a spate of car-jackings, particularly by teens, some of whom are repeat offenders. What is your office doing to ensure that kids don’t keep repeating this bad behavior?
Chisholm: It’s a small number of kids who create a disproportionate part of the harm. The danger of that is of course everyone wants to go back to OK, that’s it, every single kid who commits a crime should be locked up. But the reality is that we know that the vast majority of kids do respond to interventions very effectively, it’s just that you don’t hear about them again. The concern of the police department, the community and my office is that the individuals that have had multiple contacts with the system seem to have the ability to continue doing what they are doing.
What I strongly endorse and believe that we have to do—and this is going to require a major investment from the state—is that we have to go to what is referred to as the Missouri model, which says that you should have more options, more secure options, for juvenile offenders in the community. They generally have no more than 10 kids per facility and at least three to four staff members. They have found that to be extraordinarily effective. They always place them in the community, so judges are much less reluctant to send them there.
Now you have an all-or-nothing type of option. You can send them to Lincoln Hills, but that’s melting down. They’re going to be abused and become worse while they’re there. You’ve got a 60-70% recidivism rate for kids coming out of Lincoln Hills. What we really need to do is commit to identifying the hard-core most dangerous group and then having more secure options right in the community and then we’ll get better results.
Shepherd: I know that you’re not able to talk much about this, but what do you want people to know about why you’re appealing the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision on the John Doe investigation to the U.S. Supreme Court?
Chisholm: I want people to know that this is a fundamentally important issue, which has to be addressed by a truly fair and impartial court. What is driving it is a very simple question, and that is when people substantially aid a candidate for election, should the public know where those resources came from? If there is not true independence, then the public should know where those resources are coming from. The second issue is that every litigant in our system should have a fair shake, that you should not be in front of judges that have predisposition or bias against you before you even start. Those are really the two issues that were taken up.
I try to tell people that right now in federal courts there are some fundamentally important cases that are going to shape the future of Wisconsin, and maybe the country. Certainly the redistricting lawsuit could fundamentally change things. That is a huge one. It’s very important. The voters’ rights litigation is extremely important. But this John Doe investigation is right up there with them.
