As a resident of Illinois the fiefdom of Daley I can tell you why crime might be rising in Milwaukee. Daley has been succesful in gentrification of alot of neighborhoods, and in effect sending his criminals out of Chicago.
Hi neighbor (well almost, I'm SW).
But I don't think its the gentrification and certainly not anything that *&%^$ Daley has done.
Remember 'way back' when welfare to work reform kicked in. Even IL followed suit, but Wisconsin did not. In fact they INCREASED the benefits. I recall reading scores of articles in the Trib and Slum Times then about Chicago's 'po folk moving in droves to Wisconsin just for that reason. They were supposed to be bleeding heart, "aw geez these 'po folk are being uprooted and forced to move out of state because of the mean republicans". But the reality was, it was about 'gettin mo money'.
And with the tougher sentencing laws, many most of Daley's constituents are sitting in Statesville instead of roaming the streets raping, robbing and killing.
Plus, the Chicago PD and Crook County States Attorney is fudging the numbers. Felonies are plead down to misdemeanors and things like Assault With A Deadly weapon changed to Battery. That ^&%*@$% DICK Devine simply will NOT prosecute most gun crimes as 'gun crimes' if the perp is of a certain protected minority, which is oh.. about 80% of Chicago now. What's worse is that he absolutely refuses to turn gun crimes over to the Feds where convictions are almost guaranteed and the sentence is 20 years with no parole. His office has the lowest rate of cooperation with the FEDS in the entire USA on that.
So IMHO Chi's violent crime stats are really increasing. And I doubt if there is ONE 'safe neighborhood' within the city limits where you could go anywhere after dark without fear of becoming a crime victim.