David Clarey
Reckless driving is still a top concern among Milwaukee residents, and they're not happy with how the city has responded to the crisis, according to the latest study weighing public opinion of the Milwaukee Police Department.
That’s among the findings of the Milwaukee Police Satisfaction Survey, which asked over 1,000 residents to answer questions on their feelings about the department. Residents stubbornly remained mixed on police, with overall satisfaction largely remaining the same from prior versions of the survey.
The survey inquired on other topics as well, like what demographic groups are most and least satisfied or how those with crime interactions feel. Milwaukee’s Fire and Police Commission, the oversight body for the city’s police and fire departments, discussed the survey at a February meeting.
“I think there are some encouraging findings,” said Bree Spencer, the vice-chair of the Fire and Police Commission at the meeting.
The Milwaukee Police Department declined an interview on the survey. A department spokesperson said the police appreciated the feedback and its “main priority is the public’s safety and their concerns.”
Here’s what to know about this year’s report:
Community satisfaction with police remains mostly unmoved in Milwaukee from 2022, despite crime rates falling in recent years.
The survey found that 36% of residents were either “not at all satisfied” or “not very satisfied” with the city’s police, meaning about two-thirds of the city were somewhat satisfied. That essentially mirrored the last time the survey was conducted and was worse than the prior 2019 survey.
The survey polled groups across various demographics. Most satisfied were those 60 and older, baby boomers, while people between the ages of 30 to 44, millennials, were least satisfied.
Satisfaction among Black and other nonwhite residents increased in this year’s survey, however white residents declined for the third straight iteration of the report.
The figures come as violent crime has slowed in Milwaukee in recent years but still outpaces pre-COVID-19 crime.
Violent and property crimes – things like homicide, burglary and theft which are known as Part I crimes by FBI data standards – dipped 4% from 2023 last year. With that, a decline in homicides and nonfatal shootings were among the most significant, down 23% and 24%, respectively.
That puzzled some at the hearing.
“We’re looking at crime statistics … going down,” said Ruben Burgos, a commissioner on the oversight committee. “And yet our satisfaction has stayed the same. Shouldn’t that be changing, I would think?”
The perception of police visibility declined from 2022, while a heavy majority of residents would prefer police to be visible.
The survey asked a series of questions based on police visibility as well, ranging from how visible police were to how visible police should be.
A total of 50% of respondents said police were “not very visible” or “not at all visible.” With that, 91% of survey respondents said they would prefer police to be visible to some level.
“This has been a consistent finding over many waves of the survey. The data has never supported the assertion that some of these groups do not want the police in their neighborhood,” said Joseph Cera, the research director for Neighborhood Analytics, the organization which assisted in conducting the survey.
This change is part of a continuing trend of past waves of the survey, the report said.
Reckless driving remains a persistent problem for Milwaukee residents
Reckless driving continues to be a major concern of Milwaukee residents.
Only 3% of residents said they didn’t have concerns about the issue. Meanwhile, 88% of residents rated it at the highest level of concern and another 9% were “somewhat concerned.”
That dissatisfaction continued over how the city’s police handle the issue as well, with 64% of residents displeased.
That findings come after Milwaukee saw over 14,000 crashes in both 2023 and 2024 and 66 people killed by car crashes last year, according to Milwaukee Police Department traffic data.
The city continues to attempt to combat the issue.
Recent road construction projects intended to deter speeding and other reckless driving behaviors have had positive early impacts, city data has shown.
Meanwhile, city policymakers and authorities announced in October plans to more stringently cite and prosecute reckless drivers.
Inequities in police behavior reported
While police satisfaction increased with minority residents in Milwaukee, the survey found “patterns of inequity.”
“Black and other nonwhite residents are more than three times more likely to report having been searched or patted down during their most recent police-initiated contact when compared to white residents,” the report said.
Inequities have long been a concern for Milwaukee police.
Most notably, the 2018 Collins Settlement was brokered following the department being sued for its stop-and-frisk practices. The lawsuit it came from accused the Milwaukee Police Department of routinely stopping thousands of minorities without cause or suspicion.
The settlement required police to provide increased documentation for things like traffic stops, field interviews and other police interactions.
There was a reported increase in non-reporting of crimes to MPD
One of the report’s striking findings was an increase in non-reporting of crimes.
Compared to the last time the survey was reported, 33% of respondents who were the victim of one crime did not report it to police. In 2022, the last time the survey was taken, that figure was 13%.
Reasons for this included the belief police would not or could not help and it would be too much of a “hassle” to report the crime. A total of 46% of respondents said they did not report the crime because they didn’t expect to be treated fairly by police.
Those responses were not considered “statistically significant” increases over prior surveys, Cera said.
David Clarey is a public safety reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at dclarey@gannett.com.
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