Arrest Trends in Milwaukee, 1980-2011–Part One

Earlier this month, the ACLU released this interesting report on arrests for marijuana possession. The ACLU found a steady increase since 1990 in the number of arrests nationally for possession of pot. By 2010, arrests for this crime had come to account for nearly half of all drug arrests. Moreover, the ACLU also found that racial disparities in marijuana arrests increased right along with the number of arrests, even though surveys indicate that whites and blacks use marijuana at about equal rates.

Neither Wisconsin nor Milwaukee County performed well on the racial disparity front. Statewide, blacks are six times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, which is considerably higher than the national average of 3.73. Milwaukee County’s disparity number was also above the national average at 4.7.

Coincidentally, at about the same time the ACLU released its report, the federal government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics unveiled a new on-line, interactive arrest-data tool, which permits detailed searches of arrest data from individual cities dating back to 1980. I thought it would be interesting to examine Milwaukee’s numbers over time. I focused on arrests by the Milwaukee Police Department, which differed from the ACLU’s focus on county-level data. (The MPD is only one of several law enforcement agencies in Milwaukee County, albeit the single largest.)

The first graph below shows the annual number of arrests by the MPD by race. Unfortunately, no data were available for 1986, 1998-2000, or 2004; otherwise, every year from 1980 through 2011 is included.  

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Who Screamed? Experts, Rules, and the Zimmerman Trial

The Zimmerman homicide trial in Florida is an important bellwether on many levels. My colleague David Papke has already remarked on the jury’s composition and its possible effect on the outcome.  The evidence too is controversial and contested. The notorious 911 call recording is deemed critical, yet the trial judge excluded expert testimony on voice identification as unreliable. Her ruling rippled across the country and may even hold lessons here in Wisconsin.

The 911 call recorded a man’s voice “screaming” for help. The screamer’s identity is disputed. George Zimmerman has claimed self-defense. Prosecution experts asserted, however, that the plea came from the victim, Trayvon Martin, moments before he was shot dead. A bevy of defense witnesses, including specialists with the FBI and the NSA, attacked the methods used by the State’s experts.

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A Right to Adoption?

Two significant developments in Russia’s approach to the adoption of Russian children to foreigners have taken place this year. In January, a Russian law prohibiting American citizens from adopting Russian children took effect, thereby bringing to an end, at least for now, the longstanding and generally robust history of Russia-U.S. adoptions (between 1995 and 2011, almost 60,000 Russian children were adopted by American citizens). And just this week, the Russian Parliament approved a bill banning adoptions of Russian children to foreign same-sex couples. These laws can be expected to have, in the short-term, a discernible impact on the adoption prospects for the 100,000 or so Russian children resident in institutions.

The ban on American adoptions is known colloquially in Russia as the Dima Yakovlev Bill, named for a 21-month-old Russian boy adopted to American parents in 2008 and re-named Chase Harrison. Less than six months after his adoption, Chase died of hyperthermia after unintentionally being left in a car by his adoptive father. In a case that became highly politicized in Russia, the father was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter by a Circuit Court judge in Fairfax County, Virginia, in December 2008. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shortly thereafter issued a statement on the acquittal, expressing deep anger at the “flagrantly unjust ruling,” and implying a connection between Chase Harrison’s status as a Russian adoptee, and the lack of adequate punishment for his death.

Russia’s decision to ban American adoptions is at first glance a policy response to Russia-U.S. adoptions, such as Chase’s, that have gone wrong – Russia claims that a total of twenty Russian adoptees have been killed, whether intentionally or otherwise, by American adoptive parents. However the law is more commonly referred to in the U.S. as the “Anti-Magnitsky Law.”

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