City’s popular community prosecutor program may be at risk

Unless federal grants are renewed, five prosecutors will have to be reassigned

When Katie Sanders bought her first home on Milwaukee’s west side, she started a local block watch.

Soon after, a neighbor reached out for help: Drugs sales were rampant at a fourunit apartment across from a community garden. Sanders spent a Saturday afternoon with the neighbor, watching as six transactions took place in a mere 45 minutes.

They called Milwaukee police who connected them to the Community Prosecution Unit, which includes a county prosecutor, city police officer and a civilian coordinator. The unit developed a plan for residents to report suspected drug deals and for law enforcement to conduct a sting investigation.

With the sustained efforts, they got the property cleaned up and the sales ended, Sanders said.

“It was a way for us to take back what we felt was ours, that community space,” she said.

But those community prosecutors could disappear from some neighborhoods as soon as July 22 if federal grant funding doesn’t materialize.

“This is at the front end of problemsolving,” said Sanders, who is now the executive director of Safe and Sound, a nonprofit focused on public safety and community organizing.

“It’s very short-sighted to lose that type of program in the city,” she said.

Three community prosecutors in Police Districts 1, 3 and 7, which cover downtown and the central city, and two prosecutors who handle domestic violence and juvenile gun offender cases will be reassigned if federal grants are not renewed, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern.

“We have not heard anything about if or when funding will be available for those positions,” Lovern said. “Such a widespread loss at one time is unprecedented for our office.”

The U.S. Department of Justice, which administers the grants, did not return a message for comment.

The other Community Prosecution Units on the city’s far northwest and south sides rely on the federal Community Development Block Grant program, which also faces an uncertain future in coming budget cycles.

Building trust

The district attorney’s office has stationed prosecutors in Milwaukee neighborhoods for more than a decade. The highly respected model has been replicated in other areas and received national media attention.

It has been so successful that when Milwaukee’s biggest names in business, education, service and entertainment pooled their money to revitalize their west side neighborhood, they started by hiring a community prosecutor.

The teams focus on quality-of-life issues and nuisance properties — those that draw complaints about drug dealing, trash and loud noise — and works with city, county and state agencies to address them.

“You can have one house on a block that creates havoc and the reaction usu-

ally is people just retreat, become unhappy and don’t want to do things in their front yards,” said Pat Mueller, who lives in the city’s Martin Drive Neighborhood near Washington Park.

The community prosecution units give residents a voice in how a situation will be handled, Mueller said.

In downtown, the community prosecutor has identified people who have gotten in trouble repeatedly for public urination or intoxication and connected them with housing, mental health or substance abuse treatment,

said Beth Weirick, CEO for the Milwaukee Downtown BID #21.

Eliminating the position would be “taking 10 steps backward,” she said.

The Sherman Park neighborhood, which stretches across Police Districts 3 and 7, relies on the community prosecution unit when residents want to report problems anonymously or resolve issues with landlords, said Camille Mays, community organizer.

The neighborhood experienced two nights of violent unrest last summer after a fatal police shooting and has been a flashpoint for dialogue about police-community relations.

“Why would you eliminate

funding for something that’s getting to the root issues and is working with other neighborhood departments?” Mays said.

Unpredictable funding

If no more funding comes through, the five prosecutors will be reassigned to fill the places of retirees and others who have left the office. The cost of each position is about $85,000, including benefits.

In the past nine months, the three community prosecutors have responded to 122 “problem individuals,” 167 problem places — residential or commercial — and participated in 259 community meetings,

Lovern said.

“We just hope the funding does get renewed,” he said.

Sanders, at Safe and Sound, says community prosecution units are one of the “most effective law enforcement strategies that Milwaukee has.”

They should be built into city, county and state budgets rather than relying on piecemeal grants, she added.

Although funding has been uncertain before, it’s never been quite like this, Sanders said.

“We have been here before where these programs have been held up and things have looked bleak, but they’ve never looked this bleak and it’s never been this unpredictable,” she said.