Blog Since when is Milwaukee such an “unsafe city”?

I’ve lived in Milwaukee for 15 years, and have never once considered it a particularly dangerous city. I’ve known a handful of friends and acquaintances who have been victims of crime—I’ve been beaten and mugged once myself—but I’ve always chalked these incidents up to the occasional hazards of medium-city living, and went about my merry way. Call me crazy, but I think that as long as you keep your wits about you and steer clear of the hordes of out-of-towners during Summerfest, Milwaukee is a decidedly safe city to call home.

But that could just be me. Tonight, a group of UWM students and leaders will gather in the hard streets of the East Side in an effort to take back the night from criminals, ne’er-do-wells, and everyone else hanging around North Avenue at 2 a.m. According to a press release from the UWM Student Association:

Fed up with Milwaukee’s reputation as an unsafe city, student leaders at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM) have organized a “Brighten the Night” event to begin at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26. Participants will congregate at North Ave. and Oakland Ave., at the former site of Pizza Man. Three groups, led by volunteers from the student government and the UWM Police, will tour areas of Riverwest, the East Side, and Shorewood to remove the fear and intimidation of going out at night.

Well, if the idea is to shake off a crummy reputation and prove that Milwaukee is indeed a safe place to live, touring the East Side and fucking Shorewood should do the trick. (Meeting up at the site of one of the city’s most notorious arsons is a nice touch.) Hell, even the southeast corner of Riverwest—what with all its Pick ’n Saves and hoity-toity student dorms—is practically Main Street USA these days. As long as you forget that whole Fourth of July thing, of course.

This “Brighten the Night” event comes on the heels of a recent video from Marquette Student Media, which helpfully informed new students that Milwaukee is much more than muggings, beatings, and people who need just 75 more cents for bus fare. In a way, both efforts are admirable (if a bit tone-deaf) in that they encourage students to explore the city beyond their campuses, and quell any fears they may have about Milwaukee in general. My question, however, is this: When did students start feeling so unsafe?

At the risk of sounding 4,000 years ago, when I was a freshman at UWM, I don’t remember being especially daunted by this city. I’m only guessing, but I don’t think crime has increased (or decreased) dramatically since then. So what’s changed? There’s a telling passage in the press release for “Brighten the Night”:

“We have lots of students who are new to Milwaukee and might not know what the city is like at night, and the constant safety warnings from the UWM Police make the area seem a lot scarier than it actually is. Our hope is to get rid of that stigma and let students feel empowered to explore their new home as a group,” says Student Association Vice President Brent Johnson.

Those safety warnings are a relatively new feature to life at UWM, and according to current students I’ve talked to, are indeed constant. Along with the endless media coverage devoted to things like the State Fair “race riots,” they can easily make Milwaukee seem more dangerous than it really is, especially to new residents. (The press release notes that “of the 29,700 students at UW-Milwaukee, only about a third of them originally hail from Milwaukee County.”) But if the “Timely Warning” section of the UWM Police Department’s website is indeed timely, the last reported campus-area crime—a strong-arm robbery on the 1900 block of Locust—was back in mid-August. That’s hardly the makings of a dangerous city or neighborhood.

Media sensationalism and disproportionate fear aren’t unique to Milwaukee, of course, but they do seem be thriving here. (Steel yourself and cruise the JSOnline message boards if you don’t believe me.) I suppose I don’t blame newcomers for thinking this city is a cesspool of depravity and crime. It’s too bad we have to hold their hands just to prove it’s not.