How Wisconsin Became the Home of Black Incarceration

Milwaukee remains in a state of civil unrest following the officer-involved killing last weekend of Sylville K. Smith, a 23-year-old black male who police claim was fleeing from a traffic stop. The reasons for the unrest are as complex and historical as they are urgent. In Milwaukee, as in much of America, black residents suffer intense neighborhood segregation, income inequality, and a disproportionate amount of officer-involved shootings. But the rates of incarceration for black males set Milwaukee, and Wisconsin more broadly, apart from the rest of the country.

Beverly Walker is a Milwaukee resident whose husband has been incarcerated for nearly two decades after he was found guilty as an accessory to an armed robbery in which no one was injured. Walker has fought for his parole for nearly a decade. She says the riots must be understood in the context of African-American residents’ long-simmering frustration over the city’s excessive incarceration of black men.

“The community is out, trying to get the attention of the governor and the legislature, and we’re just not getting what we need,” says Walker. “It’s creating frustration. A lot of those kids out there don’t even have fathers. Their fathers are sitting in prison for something they should already be out for.”

The riots broke out in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park on Sunday, just a few blocks away from the city’s 53206 zip code, which is 95 percent black and has the highest incarceration rate in the country. In 53206, where Walker lives, nearly every residential block has multiple numbers of ex-offenders with prison records as of 2012.