Milwaukee Joins Criminal Justice Research Project To Review Tragic Crime

Milwaukee is joining two other cities in a new criminal justice research project designed to pinpoint bad decisions by law enforcement agencies that led to tragic crimes.

The National Institute of Justice’s Sentinel Events project is up and running in Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Baltimore. NIJ deputy director Thomas Feucht said it’s based on similar efforts at preventing medical errors in hospitals.

“For instance, a wrong-patient surgery occurred, and after a review they found out that there were nearly 20 different mistakes that were committed along the way. No one of those errors was sufficient to cause the problem,” said Feucht.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm is using the system to lead an investigation into a murder committed by a juvenile who was on probation for an armed robbery. All the people involved in the events that led up to the murder will be asking where communication broke down between the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems that may have contributed to the crime.

Chisholm said it’s an opportunity to find out who knew what about the young person’s family history, education, mental health, and prior criminal record, and when they knew it.

“Parts of the system did not have that information, and with that information they may have made different decisions,” said Chishold. “If you’d known this information, and we should have known it or we could have known it, then we probably would have made a different decision at this particular point in contact with the offender.”

Chisholm said he hopes the findings will produce a template that other jurisdictions can use to prevent similar crimes. He said the goal isn’t to find someone to blame, but rather to change policies to prevent future tragedies.