New dashboards illustrate work of Milwaukee County DA’s office, city homicide rates

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Two new online dashboards are providing data about the work of the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office and shootings and homicides in Milwaukee.

The experts behind the systems introduced them on Wednesday during a town hall meeting held by the Milwaukee Community Justice Council.

The Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and Branden Dupont, a data analyst at the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office and the Medical College of Wisconsin, presented the Milwaukee County District Attorney Dashboard.

The system displays data about referrals, charging, disposition and sentencing in adult cases. Within those categories, users can find listed information about general trends, offense types, demographics and, for referrals, law enforcement agencies. The information will be brought up to date every month.

“Our commitment is to be transparent and try to be accountable on issues of concern to the community,” Chisholm said.

The county is working with Loyola University, the Cook County District Attorney’s Office and two districts in Florida on the project, and Chisholm expects more officials will get involved.

The current site displays the first of many data points the CJC intends to release to the public. Dupont said the CJC expects to do a “more nuanced” breakout of offense types in the future, as well as include information about juvenile cases.

Chisholm said he made a commitment about a year ago to provide the public with more data about the office’s work.

“Our hope is to keep this fresh and up-to-date so that we can actually track trends and be more responsive,” Chisholm said.

He said he’s “acutely aware” of the county’s rising homicide rate; the city and county are now on pace to break record-high numbers. Overdoses and suicides are becoming increasingly common, and there are rising concerns about domestic violence.

Dr. Constance Kostelac, an assistant professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin and director of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission, meanwhile provided a demonstration of a separate dashboard that tracks data about shootings and homicides in Milwaukee.

This dashboard illustrates time trends, demographics and data from the Milwaukee Police Department. The demographic information provides details about suspects, victims and their relationships to each other. The community view presents information about the locations, times and the primary cause of incidents on a map.

The website also includes in-depth reports on particular issues.

“I think what we’re all trying to do is look at ways that we can bring data and information together as we all work to build strategies to address the myriad of challenges we’re all facing within the community,” Kostelac said.

Milwaukee County Chief Judge Mary Triggiano, Chisholm and Kostelac said the public can email them with questions, suggestions and recommendations for improvements to the system.

“These are only going to be valuable if they’re useful for the community and stakeholders,” Kostelac said. “The more feedback we can get, the better we can do at adding additional information and improving the site as we go along.” Follow @WLJReporter