MILWAUKEE — Automobile thefts have dropped dramatically in the last two years, according to the Milwaukee Police Department, but it’s not leading to the same type of increase in solving these cases.
During Friday’s Public Safety and Health Committee meeting, Assistant Chief Paul Formolo highlighted the decrease in auto thefts. As of September 7, there have been 4,127 vehicles stolen in Milwaukee, a 30.9 percent decrease from the same time in 2022 and 42.8 percent decrease compared to 2021.
“I’d attribute the decrease to messaging, partnerships, getting the clubs out there,” Formolo told the committee. “From the department itself, the focus on those habitual offenders and it’s been a collaborative effort between us, the District Attorney’s Office, the media, elected officials, community partners.”
However, according to Milwaukee Police data, they’re not arresting offenders at the same tick. Formolo says by Uniformed Crime Reporting standards, a case is considered “cleared” when there’s an arrest made.
TMJ4 News acquired clearance rate data on automobile thefts dating back to 2019.
From 2019 to 2021, the clearance rate was under five percent, but jumped up a couple percentage points in 2022 (6.6 percent).
“It may seem insignificant, but unfortunately, in our city, dealing with the voluminous amount of auto thefts we have had, we’re talking thousands of more clearances there,” Formolo said. “Although it’s a small number, in 2021, off the top of my head, there were over 10,000 auto thefts for the year. That’s pretty significant.”
According to the data provided by MPD, it’s hardly thousands of cases. In 2021, Milwaukee set a record for auto thefts, topping out at 10,483, according to the MPD Crime Maps and Statistics website. Data provided by MPD shows 490 individual case numbers were cleared that year for a 4.7 percent clearance rate.
The next year, cases dropped to 8,099 and the clearance rate jumped up to 6.6 percent. However, that resulted in 536 cleared cases, an increase of 46 individual cases cleared year over year.
Formolo acknowledged the efforts by the makers of Kia and Hyundai vehicles to make the cars more difficult to steal as one of several factors that’s likely aided the decrease. Additionally, Formolo says MPD created a motor vehicle theft task force last year to combat the issue. The task force has helped expedite fingerprint processing, identifying some offenders who have been linked to dozens of vehicle thefts.
But Formolo thinks the data is wrong.
“My opinion, it’s probably higher than 6 percent,” Formolo said. “We’re still having administrative difficulties and challenges. We need to dig into that and make sure the RMS (Records Management System) is accurately capturing what we’re doing. We have a significant number of auto thefts. We’re making the arrests. I’m just not sure we’re accurately capturing it.”
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