In Milwaukee, prosecutors hit neighborhoods, not just court

The transformation of the prosecutor's traditional role and the collaboration with police has special significance in Milwaukee, where the incarceration rate for African-Americans in some neighborhoods is the highest in the U.S. and law enforcement is hoping to rebuild a strained relationship after two nights of riots last summer when a black officer fatally shot a black man during a traffic stop.

"The ground has shifted, and people are now conscious and aware of the systemic issues to a degree that they are actually demanding that we solve problems and not simply take the politically convenient route of the tough-on-crime rhetoric," said Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, whose office is relying on federal grant money to put a prosecutor in each police district in Milwaukee.

If funding is not renewed by the U.S. Justice Department by July 22, the district attorney's office will pull prosecutors from three of the city's seven police districts, including the one where riots erupted last year.

"If you keep intervening through arrest and formal prosecution, you're just going to continue to disenfranchise that same pocket of neighborhoods and of people," said Jeffrey Altenburg, a deputy district attorney who helped launch the initiative in Milwaukee about a decade ago.

About 70 percent of the nearly 900 people who took part in deferred prosecution agreements in the last two years have fulfilled conditions that can include completing drug treatment, staying out of legal trouble, or taking job training classes.

A key aspect of the initiative is to focus on people and places that have a disproportionate impact on an area, whether it's habitual offenders or businesses and vacant homes that become a magnet for criminal activity.