Total crimes have gone down in Milwaukee since 2005. But there's more to the numbers.
As Milwaukee residents slowly started to return being active this year, the city has recorded more crimes than the same period last year.
From Jan. 1 to June 25 in 2021, the Wisconsin Incident Based Report (WIBR) crime data recorded a total of 18,116 reported crimes in Milwaukee, a slight increase compared to the end of June last year.
And 2020 saw more crimes than the year before — just over 35,000 crimes were recorded in WIBR in 2020, about 3,000 more than in 2019.
The numbers are based on Wisconsin Incident Based Reporting System (WIBRS), which is different from Milwaukee Police Department's reports by Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR).
Here's more to know about crime trends in Milwaukee.
In general, overall crime has been decreasing since 2005
An uptick in recent years may look concerning, but since 2005, the total number of crimes has seen a decline.
But crime trends look different by type of offense — some violent crimes have been rising
The trend shows a different face, however, when the numbers are broken down by type of crime. While offenses such as criminal damage and locked vehicle entry have had somewhat similar downward trends since 2005, with a slight increase this year, other types of crimes, including assault and homicide, have been on the rise.
Last year, Milwaukee police recorded 190 homicides, setting a record high for the first time since 1991. This trend continued in the first half of this year. As of June 29, there have been 80 homicides recorded by the police department, the same number as the same period last year.
Car theft saw the most significant surge in 2021
A crime that saw the most significant uptick this year is motor vehicle thefts. According to the police department, as of June 29, there have been 4,759 car thefts this year — a 193% increase from the 1,623 reported in the same period in 2020.
What is behind the rise in car thefts when general thefts have seen a steep decrease since 2005? Richard Rosenfeld, crime trends professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said one possibility is that as the coronavirus lockdown forced people to remain in their homes, they parked their cars in the driveway as opposed to a secure parking lot at work. “Cars are left, in effect, unattended and unguarded,” he added.
Rosenfeld also pointed out possible relations between car thefts and other crimes. “People who are going to commit a crime, including a violent crime, will steal a car in order to facilitate the crime,” he said, “I'm pretty certain this is the case in Milwaukee.”
It's also worth noting that certain car types are being stolen more than others. According to MPD, the top two most stolen cars so far in 2021 are Kia (1,549) and Hyundai (1,571), accounting for 66.3% of all stolen cars as of June 27.
In the same period last year, the numbers were only 43 for Kia and 74 for Hyundai.