Homicide has exploded statewide during the tenure of Attorney General Josh Kaul as he holds press conferences taking credit for Wisconsin crime statistics.
Since Kaul became the state’s “top cop,” homicide went through the roof in Wisconsin. Here are the numbers through 2023, courtesy of the Badger Institute. We drew the red arrow for the point where Kaul took office. What about 2024 and 2025, which aren’t reflected in the chart? 2026 is still too early to tell.
When Kaul took office in 2019, there were 189 homicides in Wisconsin. In 2025, there were 238 homicides in Wisconsin. In 2024, there were 255. In fact, during Kaul’s tenure, Wisconsin has seen some of the highest homicide numbers in history, escalating to 329 in 2021. The numbers are from Badger Institute research.
Kaul has claimed that he is responsible for statewide crime, and he’s argued that his opponent, Republican DA Eric Toney, is responsible for county-level crime numbers. Well, then, Kaul, a Democrat, is going to have to take responsibility for all of it – including the explosion of homicide under his watch. You don’t get it both ways.
Here’s another chart from Badger:
The legacy media will ignore or downplay this point, of course.
Although many factors go into crime increases or decreases, Kaul himself has tried to take credit for statewide crime drops in a press conference, so he’s going to have to own the increases too.
In truth, Kaul DOES play a role in crime increases because his state crime lab, which is critically important for prosecutions, has taken far fewer cases for years with greater delays in processing. That means that criminals have remained on the street for months, if not years, as cases aren’t prosecuted while prosecutors wait for key evidence they need. A key tribal leader called his agency out for eliminating drug investigator positions that she said was unnecessarily costing lives.
