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Police Chief Wray sees 'serious gang connection' in crime hike

Kristin Czubkowski  —  8/28/2008 10:02 am

Making connections among various types of crimes and ways to remedy them was the theme of the night as Police Chief Noble Wray gave a talk on public safety in Madison to the City Council Wednesday night.

Statistically, crime in Madison was a mixed bag in 2007, Wray said. While overall crime was up 5.5 percent from 2006, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, that increase stemmed primarily from an 8.3 percent increase in property crimes such as burglary, theft and arson. By contrast, violent crime, which includes acts such as homicide, rape and aggravated assault, decreased 14.2 percent in 2007.

Wray explained that the rising rates of property crimes came from the increased theft of precious metals, in particular copper, as well as thefts of big-ticket items such as televisions from businesses, which were directly related to gang activity and the drug trade, he said.

"This is the first time that I've noticed this, and I've worked for the Madison department for 24 years, that there is a serious gang connection with these (burglaries)," he said. "We haven't had that in the past."

To address these crimes, the city created the "Blue Net" Task Force in 2007, Wray said. It combined burglary data from the entire county to recognize patterns in the crimes and to educate the public about ways to prevent burglary.

The task force has overall been successful and will continue to address the "complexity" of the gang issue, Wray said, and would likely begin targeting businesses that "knowingly purchase stolen goods." In particular, he said changes in state and local law that target recyclers that purchase stolen copper and pawn shops that purchase stolen goods could help police do that. Some changes, he said, could restrict the businesses' ability to quickly buy and resell items and how much money could be given out at a single time and mandate that the shops ask for identification.

Madison's criminal problem often went beyond the scope of the police department, Wray added. With the increased burglaries in particular, he said Madison police often experience "a level of frustration" after key players from several major burglaries have been arrested, but then had charges reduced because of an overworked district attorney's office. While the number of enforcement officers has doubled in the past 20 years, the number of attorneys has remained static, creating a large back-flow of cases for the office to deal with.

"There is a question in terms of the district attorney's ability to take the time to review these cases," he said. "Just about every week I receive an e-mail or see an e-mail in the department where someone was repeatedly arrested or arrested on a pretty serious charge and it's reduced or they're let go .... We need to do something because it is impacting this community."

At the state level, Wray suggested a change in Wisconsin's law that would allow officers to take DNA samples from those arrested for felonies, not just convicted of them, calling DNA "the new fingerprint." While there are civil rights issues, Wray said, states are increasingly moving to this policy, with 12 states having it in place already and 21 considering it.

"There hasn't been a preventive element recently that has done more to free people than DNA," he added.

Wray also addressed issues with the county's 911 Communications Center, which has received numerous complaints about dropped calls. The county is currently working to improve the system by January 2009, but Ald. Tim Bruer suggested the city form a "contingency plan" in case the city needs to form its own dispatch system. Because of the complexity of getting one going, public safety coordinator Joel Plant said that has not been discussed as an option.

Lastly, the issues of re-entry into society from prison and potential recidivism and how police interact with social service agencies and the lack of coordination between them played a major role in recidivism rates, Wray said.

In particular, programs such as Journey Home, which help ex-prisoners with issues such as finding housing and a job and providing mental and emotional support, were important, Wray said.

"If you needed to go to counseling, if you needed to find housing, if you needed to find a job, by the time you did all those things, you usually ended up messing up because it would take that long," he said.

Similarly, programs such as Teen Court and Developing Alternatives to Redirect Teens helped prevent teenagers from committing more serious and more frequent crimes.

The sheer number of social services, however, and the lack of coordination between police and the programs posed a major challenge to decreasing recidivism, he said.

"I'm seeing a lot of officers with interest, but there's no coordination," Wray said.

Wray also lamented that during budget time, police are often pitted against the social agencies in which they believe strongly. This year, he said, police would not be requesting any new officers after an increase in 30 officers -- 14 currently on the street and 16 who will join the force in February -- allowed the city to plan ahead in terms of officers. The majority of those officers -- 23 -- are working in the field, Wray said, including increased patrol and beat officers for each police district. A staffing study completed this year by Etico Solutions suggested an increase in one patrol per district, which he said the 30 new officers could cover.

Kristin Czubkowski  —  8/28/2008 10:02 am