Mayor Johnson’s budget recap - AART
African American Roundtable highlighted that police were bankrupting Milwaukee in our report in 2021, yet nothing has changed and no one has seemed to listen. Police are the only department where results or metrics don’t matter. If crime is up, we need more police; if crime is down, we need more police. This logic fails to keep us safe, and this narrative fails to acknowledge what residents need and deserve.
Milwaukee’s Budget Fight
The local manifestation of the 2020 rebellion painted defund the police in ten foot letters on the street outside city hall. Many might dismiss this demand as just local people jumping on a national trend, but it wasn't. It was a mass mobilization behind authentic community demands that existed prior to 2020, and persist to this day.