Chicago in the Making and Unmaking of Police Power in Milwaukee: Toward a Regional History of Carcerality

This presentation takes a radial view of Chicago as a core site of carceral state formation and
resistance. It argues for thinking about the city’s 20th century struggles over police power in
regional terms, suggesting a broader arena of confrontation that projects beyond its municipal
borders. Chicago has directly influenced few cities more than its northern neighbor, Milwaukee.
Historically, Wisconsin’s largest city has experienced similar contests over race, space, gender,
and class, if at a much smaller scale. Yet, scholars have barely accounted for how the former has
impacted the latter and vice versa—both regarding police state-building and persistent grassroots
efforts to re-make law enforcement as a more democratic, less repressive, and liable enterprise.
This presentation highlights the long-standing importance of regional collaboration in
challenging carceral regimes, which themselves have effectively drawn on inter-metropolitan
networks to establish and maintain authority in the face of largely Black and Latinx defiance. It
focuses on select Milwaukee campaigns from the “long 1970s.” During this extended period
(1969-1984), Black and Brown Power groups envisioned new programs for “community control
of the police,” minoritized officers challenged internal racism by harnessing federal civil rights
protections, and mostly women organizers looked to create a national police accountability
network. Throughout, Milwaukee racial justice advocates turned to Chicagoans for inspiration,
collaboration, and material support. However, they were never able to match the same level of
involvement, particularly among radicals and revolutionaries; their pursuits stayed reformist,
thus reconfiguring and expanding police power on more liberal terms.