Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm fired back at Sheriff Clarke after Clarke has gone public that he thinks they should temporarily stop the plea bargaining and non prison sentences in all major crimes until a study can be done to judge its effectiveness.
Chisholm fired back (from the JSOnline)
"In a five-page response to Clarke's
proposal last week to suspend plea bargaining
and non-prison sentences in all major crimes, pending a study of the
practice, Chishold called the idea "legally, ethically and practically
irresponsible," and took swipes at Clarke's talk radio hosting, his
secretly pursuing a master's degree in California, and his decisions to have
deputies watch private guards check courthouse visitors, rather than arrest offenders on the streets."
However I think the Sheriff may be correct here. Milwaukee is seeing a spike in major crime and some of these offenders wouldn't be on the streets if not for the pleas and non-prison sentences. I also find it hypocritical that the D.A. is saying that Officers need to arrest offenders on the streets. What difference does it make when the D.A. just puts them right back out on the street to offend again? Is this Job Security? Officers arrest them, then the D.A. puts them back out there so the Officers can arrest them again and again and again.The D.A. must be forgetting that there are victims to these crimes and every time you put them on the street again there is another victim.
It seems that the only Leadership that we get around Milwaukee is from the Sheriff. Since what the Mayor, D.A. and County Executive have been doing doesn't seem to be working, maybe they should listen to the Sheriff instead of going after him.