Some of Sheriff Clarke’s recent comments during an appearance on CNN provide further evidence of why Milwaukee County needs a new sheriff. For example, he describes groups that fight to hold police officers accountable for killing unarmed civilians as “anarchist groups exploiting tragic situations to create chaos.” In addition, Clarke says the protests lack merit and suggests that protesters do not truly believe that black lives matter.
Clarke states that police officers killed more whites than blacks in recent years, but he ignores large racial disparities in the per capita rate of killings. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that police killed more whites than blacks since 1999. However, whites constitute approximately 63 percent of the U.S. population while blacks constitute approximately 13 percent of the population. Some research demonstrates that law enforcement officials kill blacks at highly disproportionate rates. One study shows that from 2010 to 2012, black teens were 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police officers than white teens.
I agree with Clarke that more must be done to prevent murders in predominantly black neighborhoods in Milwaukee, but this will not be accomplished solely through the efforts of law enforcement officials. More than half of adult black males in Milwaukee do not have jobs, and about half of black males in their 30s and 40s who reside in Milwaukee County have spent time in Wisconsin prisons. Wisconsin imprisoned nearly half of these individuals for drug offenses. In order to decrease the murder rate in Milwaukee, public officials will have to focus more on attacking the root causes of crime.
Sheriff Clarke speaks about the need to reduce crime in largely black communities, but some of the policies he supports actually decrease the likelihood that this will occur. In a 2011 editorial, he said that “tough sentencing is an effective crime-control strategy.” Todd Clear, a criminologist at Rutgers University, completed a study which shows that mass imprisonment creates instability in marginalized neighborhoods that leads to increases in crime. New Jersey, New York, and California recently demonstrated that states can reduce violent crime rates while also reducing levels of imprisonment. When Clarke controlled Milwaukee County’s correctional facilities, he supported the elimination of several rehabilitation programs that have the potential to help people successfully reintegrate into communities. Additionally, Clarke opposes the implementation of community courts in predominantly African American neighborhoods that can make communities safer. These courts increase the likelihood that young people will become productive, law-abiding citizens by providing them with alternative to incarceration programs focused on rehabilitation and by giving them the opportunity to avoid criminal records which would greatly limit their life chances.
