Middle America's Crime Wave

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MORE PAROLEES ON THE STREET

U.S. prisons release an average of 630,000 inmates each year, and that number will rise for the foreseeable future as more and more sentences run out from arrests made during the Reagan Administration's war on drugs in the 1980s and the zero-tolerance crackdown in the '90s. Calculate in average recidivism rates of 40% for those released from federal penitentiaries and 67% for those who leave state facilities, and it's clear that more crimes are being committed because there are simply more criminals around to commit them. Says Milwaukee district attorney E. Michael McCann: "We're charging the same guys who came through our doors 10 or 20 years ago."

A commission set up to study the city's worst homicides found that 50% of both homicide perpetrators and victims in 2005 had been previously arrested. One in five was on probation or parole at the time of the slaying. "It's shocking to see the criminal histories of the people in these cases," says University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee professor Steve Brandl, one the commissioners. "They seem destined for a life of imprisonment."

The majority of the parolees entered prison in their early 20s or late teens. Most never finished school or held a job, and they lack the skills to do so. In Wisconsin 70% of prisoners struggle with drug or alcohol addiction. "If we don't want to see them again and again, we've got to offer them more than the clothes on their backs, a Greyhound ticket and $15 in their pocket," says Dolan, referring to aid cons receive when they leave prison. Even those who participated in substance-abuse counseling and the few education and job-training programs available while inside say those initiatives didn't prepare them for life back on the streets.

Resources outside are even more limited. Milwaukee has 160 halfway beds for recently released inmates, but those beds are so in demand that a parolee can stay a maximum of just 90 days. "Ideally we'd have five to 10 times the number of beds we do, and we could tailor the stay for each ex-offender," says Steve Swigart, whose nonprofit Wisconsin Community Services runs such facilities. Often the alternative is sleeping on a drug-house sofa or rejoining a gang simply for a place to bunk.

When Annie Schrader, 46, was released from prison in 2002, her only employment had been running an escort service and dealing drugs. A long job search yielded no possibilities and a deepening depression. "It's a huge problem because you know you can flip some dope and make a lot of money," says Schrader, who now counsels other ex-cons through a ministry called StretcherBearers.

HIGHER UNEMPLOYMENT

Since 1998, Wisconsin has lost nearly 90,000 manufacturing jobs. Milwaukee has suffered the brunt of that, hemorrhaging 7,500 positions in 2005 alone. The unemployment rate hovers around 7%, up from 2.6% in 1998 and nearly double the national average. In inner-city neighborhoods, the level rises to nearly 60% for working-age males. With only half of adults earning more than a high school diploma, the city's residents aren't well matched for the white-collar jobs most common today. The number of able men wandering the streets in the daytime is striking.