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Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, noted for his top-notch managerial skills, has come under fire from the union representing corrections officers at the Milwaukee County House of Corrections for his attempts to enact staffing changes in violation of negotiated labor agreements (emphasis mine):

Clarke said he decided to use the sergeants as backup for guards after an initial review of the House of Correction operation. Sergeants have a different job classification and their main duties include supervision, booking inmates and training.

Schoofs said the union contract did not allow interchanging sergeants for lower level correctional officers, unless the only alternative was forced overtime.

The sheriff said he didn’t care what the job duties were on paper and that he wants to use the available staff more effectively and avoid the big overtime costs that have plagued the House of Correction. Overtime costs for 2008 were expected to exceed $4.3 million, despite the hiring of dozens of new correctional officers.

Sheriff Clarke’s not noted for a leadership style that inspires his rank and file subordinates, but it seems to me to be extremely counterproductive to pick a fight with corrections officers shortly after taking control of the management of the HOC. For as long as I can remember, one of the biggest problems at the HOC has been the severe morale problem among many of its employees, a morale problem which has affected not only retention of staff, but the hiring of new staff as well. As a veteran of both the HOC and State correctional facilities, I know that many of the problems the HOC faces, such as a chronic shortage of staff and the massive amounts of overtime - both voluntary and forced - that are a result of understaffing at the HOC are not as pervasive a problem at many state correctional institutions.

By their very nature, jobs in correctional institutions aren’t conducive to high morale. Those jobs are demanding both physically and mentally, and those demands can be difficult to deal with, especially when compounded by management that cares less about staff and more about a bottom line and “proving a point.” If Sheriff David Clarke really cared about improving things at the HOC, he’d be a little more willing to work with the line staff, instead of purposely trying to work against them.

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I’m far from being a fan of Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. Putting aside the fact that he’s a conservative masquerading as a Democrat for political expediency, I’ve never been impressed with Sheriff Clarke as a crime fighter. His GRIP program proved to be woefully ineffective before being ended, and he’s famous (or infamous) for his mismanagement of the Milwaukee County Jail.

So imagine my surprise when as I was surfing the intertubes I came across a story about how “helpful” Sheriff Clarke was to a drunken, stranded motorist back in February of this year:

On a frigid and snowy Sunday afternoon in February, Brian Allen drove his car off the Good Hope Road entrance ramp to Highway 41/45 and into a nearby snow bank.

It looked, at first glance, like a run-of-the-mill winter accident.

At least that’s the way Sheriff David Clarke Jr. treated it.

But he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Clarke, the first cop at the scene, instantly moved into helper mode. First, he tried to push and then pull Allen’s vehicle out of the snow bank. But even with the help of another motorist, Clarke couldn’t get Allen and his Ford Taurus back on the road.

That’s when the second officer arrived.

Deputy Sandra Santoro did what any good cop should have done from the start.

Santoro ran a check on the driver and found that his license was suspended. She then sized up Allen, noticing his eyes were bloodshot and glassy and that he reeked of alcohol. Visible inside his car were two empty beer bottles, one empty beer can and an open beer can, still three-quarters full.

“I’m not gonna lie to you,” Allen told Santoro, according to her police report. “I was drinking. I had a few beers. I knew I was busted when you guys came.

“I almost got away with it.”

As it turned out, Allen’s blood-alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit. The 43-year-old driver later pleaded no contest to drunken driving, agreeing to pay a $764 fine.

Putting aside the fact that Sheriff Clarke attempted to help get an obviously drunk driver back onto the roads - where he could potentially kill someone - I’m more than a little disturbed by Sheriff Clarke’s behavior after the incident:

In response to the open records query, Clarke’s office released the reports by the two deputies and other documents related to Allen’s arrest. Absent from the material, however, is any written report by Clarke on the incident.

Since he was the first officer at the scene, shouldn’t the twice-elected Democratic sheriff have filed a report?

“You would think so,” said Felber, the union boss.

But that would have meant the sheriff would have put in writing how he tried to help a drunken driver get back on the highway.

Considering the tough stand Sheriff Clarke has taken against drunk driving, shouldn’t he be practicing what he preaches when it comes to doing his job properly? After all, what kind of message does it send to folks when Milwaukee County’s “top cop” is trying to assist drunk drivers get back onto our roads?

What’s more, how can anyone be certain this is the first time Sheriff Clarke’s been in a situation where he’s helped a drunken motorist get back onto the road?

H/T to capper over at Cognitive Dissidence.

As first noted by capper over at whallah!, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is playing the blame game once again, and this time he’s blaming everyone but himself (conveniently enough) for the recent spate of shootings in Milwaukee. In an email to Chuck Sykes, Clarke blames Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Common Council President Willie Hines, Governor Jim Doyle, the Milwaukee County Circuit Court judges, and District Attorney John Chisholm in quick succession for the recent rash of violence in Milwaukee, but as I read Clarke’s missive, I noticed one glaring absence among those named as being responsible: Sheriff David Clarke. As Milwaukee County’s top law enforcement official, shouldn’t Sheriff Clarke share in some of the blame for the problems that plague Milwaukee? After all, as Milwaukee County’s “top cop,” Clarke should be at the forefront of any efforts to make Milwaukee a safer place to live, work, and raise a family.

Then again, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Clarke’s casting blame at everyone but himself, because in doing so he’s shifting attention away from his own failed policies as Milwaukee County Sheriff - policies which include pulling deputies from patrolling Milwaukee County parks, eliminating the drug unit, and stopping support for the DARE program, among other things. Maybe Clarke’s bitter because knows he probably will never advance further than his current position, or maybe he’s just too arrogant to admit to his own shortcomings, but if he’s serious about helping find a solution to violent crime in Milwaukee, I’d like to see a lot less talking and a lot more action.

As reported a couple of weeks ago by Michael Mathias at Pundit Nation, Americans For Prosperity are holding their Defending the American Dream summit on February 9th in Pewaukee. Among those slated to speak at the summit are Congressman Paul Ryan, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, and Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee. As I perused the website for the summit, I couldn’t help but notice this:

Earlier this year, we held the largest taxpayer rally in Wisconsin’s history on the steps of the state capitol in Madison to send a message to the Governor and Legislature to hold the line on taxes.

While AFP might technically be correct in saying they held the largest taxpayer rally in Wisconsin’s history earlier this year, that’s not exactly saying too much, considering they were outnumbered almost two to one by folks opposed to AFP’s anti-tax kookery.

Is kookery even a word? I’m not sure it is, but it should be.

Heck, I might even attend the summit - maybe Michael Mathias will give me his free tix.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker has talked a lot about his desire to close the Community Correctional Center - Milwaukee’s Huber work release facility - and replace it with GPS monitoring for offenders who would have otherwise been housed at CCC. Walker’s touted his plan as being one that will save the County - and taxpayers - millions of dollars, but Sheriff David Clarke isn’t buying it. “If you are not going to do GPS right, I’m going to stand in the way of it,” Clarke said to the MJS. What I found most interesting was this passage from the article:

Clarke said in an interview that serious unanswered questions about the GPS system remain. To be done properly, inmates considered for GPS monitoring should be carefully pre-screened, he said. All violent and drug offenders should be excluded, Clarke said.

A successful monitoring program also should have frequent drug testing, he said. And the program needs extra law enforcement help to round up inmates who set off alarms for straying from approved travel routes to school or jobs.

All those things cost money that hasn’t been found yet, Clarke said.

That’s exactly the problem I’ve always had with Scott Walker’s plan to close CCC - the fact that it may not actually save much more money than keeping CCC open and fully staffed. Another concern of mine was also raised by Sheriff Clarke - that being the fact that offenders on GPS could still be committing new crimes while they’re being monitored, because a GPS bracelet won’t prevent someone from committing murder or dealing drugs.

Ultimately, any solution to the problems that have plagued CCC will come only after Scott Walker and Ron Malone, the Superintendent of the House of Corrections and CCC, finally admit that the problems at those two facilities aren’t simply a matter of lazy staff who don’t want to do their jobs properly. If I were running things at the HOC and CCC, my first course of action would be to change the entire culture and improve working conditions for staff, because staff who don’t like coming to work aren’t going to do their best while they’re at their jobs. There’s no denying there’s a lot of problems at the HOC and CCC, but those problems can most certainly be fixed - but only if management is willing to work collaboratively with the rank and file corrections staff to enact real changes that not only improve working conditions, but that also keep our communities safer.

GPS monitoring isn’t going to be a magic fix for what’s wrong with CCC, and if Scott Walker thinks it is, he’s fooling himself.

capper over at folkbum’s is talking about this too.

I know I’m biased, but I honestly believe David Clarke has been a miserable failure as Sheriff of Milwaukee County. This is a man who, during his tenure in office, has done more to alienate the rank and file members of the Sheriff’s Department than any of his predecessors, a fact that isn’t surprising given his penchant for calling his subordinates “losers” and “dumb,” and putting aside his lack of any kind of leadership qualities, he hasn’t really done much to fix that which is wrong with the Sheriff’s Department. This is also the same man who time and time again blames his subordinates whenever there’s a problem at the jail, leading me to conclude Sheriff Clarke’s obviously not a believer in Harry Truman’s philosophy that “The Buck Stops Here.” As Sheriff, he should take some responsibility for how the jail is operated, because that is one of his mandates as Sheriff, yet time and time again he deflects any blame off himself and on to the deputies and corrections officers that work under him, ostensibly because he’s more concerned about his own political future than he is about doing what’s right for the Sheriff’s Department - and not just David Clarke.

After all, how can anyone forget the absolute failure that was the GRIP program, Sheriff Clarke’s vaunted - but ultimately ineffective - program for taking guns off Milwaukee’s streets. I sure haven’t forgotten GRIP, because it was largely due to the GRIP program that deputies in the field were sent on a fool’s errand instead that yielded little in the way of actual results, while creating holes in coverage throughout the county.

As I’ve said, I’m not fan of David Clarke, but that’s because I don’t consider him much of a lawman. After all, how can anyone respect a Sheriff whose “plan” for reducing crime in Milwaukee consists of:

• Send folks to church
• Get them more money
• School uniforms for kids

Noticeably absent from that list? Any mention of specific law enforcement strategies to deal with crime in Milwaukee. There’s no mention of putting more deputies onto our streets and highways, and there’s no mention of partnering with other law enforcement agencies in Milwaukee County to work collaboratively to combat crime. If this is what passes for Sheriff David Clarke’s “plan” for making Milwaukee safer, then perhaps I should run for Sheriff, because I’m sure I can come up with a comparably detailed and comprehensive “plan” in about five minutes.

I wish I was surprised, but knowing what I know of how the Milwaukee County Jail is run from the top down, it’s not shocking that another inmate has escaped from the County Jail. Jaron X. Jennings, in custody on a probation hold for an outstanding auto theft warrant, switched wristbands with an inmate in custody on a misdemeanor marijuana charge, enabling Jennings to bail out. It’s important to note that a probation/parole hold is a hold with no bail or bond, so the individual under a VOP (Violation of Probation/Parole) hold can’t be released by anyone except their Probation & Parole Agent.

Of course, when asked for a comment on the situation regarding the escape, Sheriff David Clarke blamed everyone but himself for the failure, saying,

“Wristband switching is one of the oldest tricks in the books, yet we have people working here that are still dumb enough to fall for it; however, they won’t be here after I finish my investigation.”

Now I know that as Sheriff, David Clarke can’t know everything that goes on in the Milwaukee County Jail on a day to day basis, but this escape is just another example of how ineffective and farcical the leadership of the Milwaukee County Jail/HOC/CCC really has become. This is just another in a long line of blunders and mistakes that have given these facilities and their staff the reputation of being an absolute joke, sometimes undeservedly so, sometimes not. Heck, at this point, I’m starting to believe I could do a better job of running the county’s criminal justice facilities than the current crop of leaders.

Now I know Badger Blogger isn’t a blog known for having a gaggle of intelligent, articulate conservative readers, but I simply can’t believe the views of some of its readers, a group that really exemplifies the best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) with Wisconsin wingosphere has to offer. In a recent post talking about Sheriff David Clarke’s flip-flop on concealed carry, “Peter” (who not surprisingly chooses to remain semi-anonymous), advocates the lynching of black folks in Milwaukee’s inner city.

A rope and a tree might bring some law and order to the Central City.

Peter follows up that proposed “solution” by taking it a little further, stating:

A little vigilante justice may make the thugs take notice. Clearly the criminal justice system doesn’t want to control things. Kinda like the Toby Keith/Willie Nelson song, Whiskey For My Men (Beer For My Horses). I wouldn’t object at all to seeing the gangbangers and thugs at the end of a rope.

What I can’t help but wonder is if Peter’s ready to take his rope and starting walking the streets looking for folks to lynch, because I’ve noticed it seems to be a common trend among some conservatives to talk tough but do precious little to back up that talk. I call it the “keyboard commando” syndrome; it’s easy to type tough about the war in Iraq and how to fight crime in Milwaukee, but it’s quite another to actually have the courage to do something about it.

As reported first by Xoff, David Clarke’s apparently changed his tune in a big way when it comes to allowing folks here in Wisconsin to carry concealed weapons. Back in 2003, Clarke supported a ban on concealed weapons, going so far as to urge Governor Jim Doyle to veto a measure that would have lifted the ban. Back when he supported keeping the ban in place, Clarke cited concerns about the safety of his deputies and what would happen if there were a “flood” of dangerous weapons to Milwaukee’s streets. As recently as last fall, in his campaign to be re-elected as Milwaukee County Sheriff, Clarke remained opposed to overturning Wisconsin’s ban on carrying concealed weapons. Sheriff Clarke’s flip-flop came to light in an email he sent to Charlie Sykes blasting Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Governor Jim Doyle, and State Senator Spencer Coggs, among others, for all that ails Milwaukee’s inner city. What I’m left to wonder is if Sheriff Clarke, as an elected official and Milwaukee’s “top cop” is willing to accept any blame for the state of the City.

Obviously this is just a prelude to David Clarke running for mayor, but I can’t help but wonder what accomplishments David Clarke has as sheriff that make him a better candidate for mayor than Tom Barrett. What’s he done to distinguish himself, besides kissing the collective asses of the local right wing radio nuts?