Crime Rates in Milwaukee Heat Up

Today the City of Milwaukee announced May is Violence Prevention Month. CBS 58 looked at how violence is impacting young people and the programs in place to protect them.

Brianna Allen, a mother says, her kids spend more time inside than outside. She lives around the corner from the 9-year-old who was shot.

"I heard gunshots and I just took my babies and my friends kids and ran into the basement."

Allen lives around the corner from the 9-year-old who was shot. 

Allen says, "When it gets hot it feels like the crime gets higher. I'll be in the house I'm scared, I don't go out like that."

Milwaukee Police records show an increase in homicides as the weather improved, showing only 5 homicides in the frigid months of January, the "crime barometer" climbed to 14 homicides by March.  

Shootings have also increased, showing 37 in January, the number went to 53 by the rainy months of April.

La'ketta Caldwell, the Arts Education Program Manager with the Boys and Girls Club says, the club talk to kids about the violence but got this reaction--

"They were like that normal, that's normal for me, i knew a lot of people who died due to gun violence, and that shouldn't be their normal."

She says the club emphasizes the arts as a way for kids to communicate their trauma. 

Caldwell says, "Using poetry, visual arts and color, gives them an opportunity to express what's going on."

With the weather just starting to warm up, and with it the crime rate rising, Allen says she hopes crime trends aren't something the community is willing to accept.

"A lot of kids aren't used to that, I'm not used to that."

The City of Milwaukee will have programing all around the city to address the violence for Violence Prevention Month.