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Aminat Bakare, who has grandsons ages 8 to 19, is looking for programs that could help them. 

“I have a lot of grandsons,” Bakare said. “I want to know what’s going on as far as different programs that can help them to stay on the right path.”

She was among residents on hand Wednesday for Milwaukee County’s launch of the Destined for Greater initiative, a collaborative effort to reduce violence.

Milwaukee County officials announced during the event, held at the Wisconsin Black Historical Society and Museum, they will use $1.5 million in state violence prevention funds to help connect residents in high-need neighborhoods with employment opportunities, housing assistance, mental health support and violence intervention services.

The initiative, overseen by the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services, brings together existing violence intervention programs, wellness services and projects funded through the $1.5 million in state funding. 

Bakare, who lives on the Northwest Side, said peer pressure is one of the biggest challenges facing her grandsons.

She said she was particularly hopeful the initiative will result in employment opportunities.

“Something that can spark their interest,” she said. 

Robert Fisher, 15, attended the event with a mentor from the city’s 414LIFE, a community and hospital-based violence intervention program, to learn about the same opportunities.

Fisher said jobs and opportunities to create things are also hard to come by.

‘This is about peace’

Violence prevention workers and community members say the increased state funding could expand services and strengthen partnerships to help improve public safety.

Among the most enthusiastic was Kenneth Burns, a Milwaukee Public Schools student who described the benefits of INPOWER Solutions’ Grow Rich Initiative, which teaches gardening, entrepreneurship and other job-readiness skills. INPOWER is one of several organizations participating in the initiative. 

“For me, this is about peace,” Burns said. “Being in the garden gives me a place to slow down, build on something positive.”

Other partners include Milwaukee Turners, Milwaukee Bucks Foundation, Bloom Art and Integrated Therapies, and Community Justice Council.

According to a county press release, the Destined for Greater initiative will reduce community violence by building on the success of existing programs. 

The release cited the Advance Peace Fellowship, created in 2024, and the Credible Messenger program, as examples.

The release said 95% of fellows reported no new gun injuries and that 76% of youths who participated in Credible Messenger recently had no referral or offense while in the program. 

Moving forward

Crowley told NNS the goal of the initiative is to create collaboration in which organizations understand each other’s roles and can connect residents to needed services, even when they cannot provide those services themselves.

Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern told NNS he supports the effort.

“This is good news,” Lovern said. “It is important that this work is community-led.”

Both Bakare and Fisher said they, too, liked what they heard.

“I was very impressed,” Bakare said.

What’s next?

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The county and its partners plan to provide regular updates on the implementation and progress of the initiative.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

State funding strengthens collaboration among Milwaukee violence prevention organizations is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Americans’ views on crime often don’t match reality — and a new report suggests those perceptions are shaped as much by personal experiences and economic conditions as by crime itself.

The analysis, released by the nonprofit think tank Council on Criminal Justice, draws on decades of Gallup survey data to examine how people perceive crime and what drives those beliefs. The report’s authors found that, since the 1960s, public perceptions of crime have frequently diverged from actual crime trends.

Even during periods when crime declined, most Americans continued to believe it was rising. From 2005 to 2024, about 69% of survey respondents on average said crime was higher than the year before, despite overall crime rates falling in most of those years, according to the report.

Fear of crime has remained relatively stable over time. In 2024, 35% of Americans said they were afraid to walk alone at night — the same share as in 1968.

The researchers found that public concern tends to track major shifts in homicide rates more closely than broader crime trends. But overall, people’s views about crime and their fear of it have not matched shifts in crime rates for most years, according to the report.

Instead, the analysis points to other factors that shape how Americans think about public safety.

Household victimization — whether someone in the home has been a victim of a crime — was one of the strongest predictors of both fear and the belief that crime is increasing. 

Property crimes, such as theft, and people’s own experiences with crime were more closely tied to concerns about the issue than actual violent crime rates.

Economic sentiment also played a role. People who said it was a good time to find a job or expected to spend the same or more on holiday shopping were less likely to say crime was rising and less likely to report fear of walking alone at night, according to the report.

Political views showed a more limited effect. While people with more conservative ideologies were somewhat more likely to perceive crime as increasing, political party affiliation itself was not a significant factor after accounting for economic conditions and other variables.

Higher presidential and congressional approval ratings were associated with a greater likelihood that respondents said crime was staying the same or declining, according to the report.

Local conditions, meanwhile, were more closely linked to personal fears than to perceptions of crime overall. The researchers found that neighborhood factors, such as poverty and youth population, were associated with whether people said they were afraid, but did not generally influence whether they believed crime was rising locally or nationally.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.