Wisconsin's Crime

Wisconsin isn't typically known for its greatest criminals. When people think about the state they think about its farm, and dairy-lands. However Wisconsin has an intriguing relationship with the law, and its disobedience.

Almost everywhere on Earth places with higher populations have higher crime rates. This is the same for Wisconsin, so where is it safe, and where isn't?

In the map above, there isn't any outstanding relationship between the coloring and the places on the map. However if you look closely, the darkest parts of the map are near large population areas like Green Bay, or Madison. The safest areas are more rural, and are almost white in color. There are still some outliers which could be explained by a town having such a small population, that any crime would make their average higher. So overall it's a pretty safe bet that rural cities are definitely safer than the others, and the higher the population, the higher the crime.

A way a person has grown up, and lived can impact their chances of having a life in crime. Research shows that criminal convicts are likely to have gone through four times as many childhood events that effected them negatively. Whether that be domestic violence, or abuse, any trauma has an effect.

What does this have to do with Wisconsin?

Wisconsin cities like Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Madison all are some of the most populated areas in the state. Unlike most rural places, the more populated living spaces tend to have "Bad," Neighborhoods. Whether this be more crime, or just poor living circumstances, Wisconsin's big cities tend to have more of these "Bad," Neighborhoods. This can help explain why the bigger cities have higher crime rates per person.

Wisconsin has a lower crime rate than the rest of the United States. In 2019 the U.S as a whole reported 8,171,087 crimes. That comes out to an average of about 2,480 crimes per 100,000 people. In Wisconsin there was a reported 102,742 crimes, a mere 1.26% of the countries crimes. In Wisconsin there was a total of 1,765 crimes per 100,000 people, about half as many as the whole country.

What about other States?

The map above (Crime Rates in Wisconsin) spread appears to be random, but if you look closely there are patterns. Like all cities the most populated areas have more crime, but there also seems to be a higher amount of crime near the border of Wisconsin. Most of these could be explained since they are near big cities, however on the upper part of Wisconsin that borders Minnesota, there is a large amount of dark blue. Most of the dark color is close to Minneapolis, but the rest is near more rural parts of the state. The darkest area near this dark blue spot in the town of Hinckley.

The odd part about Hinckley is unlike Wisconsin, Hinckley isn't a very populated area. The population of Hinckley was 1,606 in 2019, while cities like Milwaukee had 594,548 residents. Given that Milwaukee has a larger square milage, this is to be expected, however in this case both of the cities crime rates are very similar. Hinckley was ranked safer than 7% of U.S cities and Milwaukee safer than 5%. This is shocking considering the two cities vast difference in population and size to be so similar with crime statistics.

Although Wisconsin may be known for cheese, the state has produced some of the biggest criminal names in the United States. Some include Jeffrey Dahmer, known as the, "Milwaukee Cannibal," And Bernadine Dohrn who was on the FBI's most wanted list for several years.