June 12, 2009 – Enforcing building codes may not be how people typically think of combating drug dealers and violent crime, but Adam Stephens is doing just that.

Stephens is an assistant city attorney in Milwaukee and the coordinator of its Community Prosecution Unit. Stephens puts forward the theory that crime occurs when “a motivated offender finds a vulnerable victim or target at a suitable place.”

With fewer places attractive to criminals, there can be less crime, Stephens and other Wisconsin government lawyers reasoned during a presentation at the State Bar Annual Convention on May 7.

“If a drug dealer gets arrested and charged, I have found in my experience the next drug dealer down the street says, ‘Hey, guess what, I’ve got an opening. I’m going to move in right where he left,’” Stephens said. “So there has to be a follow-up. We have to decrease the suitability.”

A city attorney is uniquely positioned to take those steps toward improving places in a neighborhood, Stephens said.

“As city attorneys we have jurisdiction in Wisconsin to handle public nuisance lawsuits,” Stephens said. “The very generic definition of nuisance is a misuse of property that negatively affects neighboring properties.”

This strategy focusing on neighborhood blight not only potentially disrupts major criminal activity, it also addresses some of the most pressing concerns of its residents.

Community prosecution 

The U.S. Department of Justice explains that prosecutors often find community residents are not as immediately concerned with serious crimes as they are with those that make life in the neighborhood unsafe or unpleasant. Accordingly, community prosecution is about listening to those citizen concerns and delivering solutions.

Working in conjunction with community police units, Jennifer Zilavy of the Madison City Attorney’s Office says that she spends a lot of time meeting residents.

“One thing I’ve really enjoyed … is going out to these neighborhoods and spending many, many hours walking with the police officers,” Zilavy said. “We’ve gone door to door in neighborhoods and introduced ourselves and [asked] residents ‘Are things good with your landlords?’ “Do you feel satisfied with the condition of your building?’”

Zilavy reported this face time alone has brought improvements.

“Just [to] be out there in the community and [to] let people know that we’re there and we’re there to help,” Zilavy said. “I think in a lot of the neighborhoods where we’ve done that, it’s put a different feel into the neighborhood because it’s not just ‘the city attorney whose prosecuting,’ [but that] ‘they’re actually out here getting to know us, they care about what’s going on in the neighborhood.’”

Despite its name, community prosecution is a strategy that works best without resorting to the courts.

“While we do use some of the tools available like the current nuisance ordinance and the state statutes, for a long time Madison has dealt with these problems relatively informally,” Zilavy said, explaining that when she receives a complaint about a property, she arranges a meeting with the landowner.

“Sometimes we’ll have several meetings over the course of six months, up to a year to try to get the landlord to implement ideas that we’ve come up with to abate the nuisance activity,” Zilavy said. “Generally, what we are trying to do is help them take care of the problem so that we don’t have to resort to litigation.”

Stephens said “litigation is when we failed.”

“Litigation doesn’t work,” Stephens said. “It’s scorched earth. You handle a couple of cases, maybe you get something done on that one property. But while I’m in court for an entire afternoon, there’re five other landlords I could be working with. Or two other neighborhoods I could be meeting with and helping them get their block watches working with the police.”

Madison City Attorney Michael May noted that not just the lawyers enforcing the community prosecutions are reluctant to go to court.

“We have found that if you build up the case and you bring a court action, most of the time the mortgage holder jumps in because that’s the last thing they want to see,” May said. “They will bring foreclosure and they will put in somebody new to manage the property.”

Zilavy said in most instances, landlords are receptive to the help the city offers to deal with nuisances. For its part, she said her office -- working with members of the community, the police, and building code enforcement -- attempts to give practical solutions.

“We come up with different strategies they can use to abate the nuisance,” Zilavy said. “And it’s not always eviction. There are other things they can do to help eliminate the illegal activity on the property whether it’s cutting down shrubs that are providing cover for drug dealers, just maintaining the property so that it’s more aesthetically pleasing, maybe increasing lighting in the parking lots.”

Results 

“My assessment, two-and-a-half years into a full commitment to community-based prosecutions, is that we’ve made some real progress,” said Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, noting positive signs such as reduced violent crime and “a better sense of stability in these neighborhoods.”

May said that community prosecutions has made a difference in Madison, but the work is never finished.

“One of the things you do when you’re successful at ending some of those criminal activities is that they tend to disperse and they move out to different neighborhoods,” said May. “They began to move into neighborhoods where people hadn’t seen this before.”

Madison responded to the public concern by hiring 30 additional police officers and added a position in his office to focus on community prosecutions, May said.