Sign to implement high-quality lighting across UW-Milwaukee's campus as well as to hire top-tier law enforcement personnel!

In 2022, there were a multitude of armed robberies, car thefts, property thefts, and assaults reported on the University Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM) campus, with countless incidents left unreported to police and thus unannounced by UWM’s Safe Alert system. According to the University of California Los Angeles School of Law Williams Institute, LGBTQ+ people are nine times more likely to become victims of violent crime. Black people are eight times more likely to become victims of homicide and further, Black and Hispanic people are twice as likely to become victims of violent crime, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report. 

Crime also affects college-age students more than any other age bracket, according to the same report. An individual between the ages of 18-21 is nearly twice as likely to experience violent crime than their peers aged 25-28, including but not limited to murder, robbery, and assault of all forms. People aged 18-21 are 2.5 times more likely to become victims of sex crimes than their peers aged 25-29, and women aged 18-21 are 3.5 times more likely than men to become victims of sex crimes compared to their 25-29 year-old peers.

Clearly, there is a desperate need for increased safety on our beloved Milwaukee campus. Whether you lean left or right politically, one cannot deny that the safety and wellbeing of our students across race, sex, and gender is in peril. We cannot continue to stand by and allow our students, neighbors, and community members to fall victim to violent crime, which continues to steadily increase year by year according to the City of Milwaukee’s crime statistics. We as a community need to prioritize the implementation of high-quality lighting on and around campus as well as an increased police force that is both properly trained and of the highest caliber. 

Will you sign this petition in support of the safety of all UWM students and community members? If so, please consider sharing this petition as well. If you see something, say something. The UWM Police Department emergency dispatch can be reached by calling 414-229-9911 or simply 911, and their non-emergency staff can be reached at (414) 229-4627.