Naperville launching online crime map
An online tool soon will let Naperville residents keep a close eye on crimes in their neighborhood.
Launching sometime the week of Nov. 28, a crime map on the city's website will show when and where 17 types of offenses and three types of traffic or other violations have occurred in town.
City staff members in the police and IT departments developed the map starting in June to improve transparency.
“Residents want to know what's occurring in their neighborhood,” police Chief Robert Marshall said. “So it's for education and it's also for crime prevention.”
The idea is that residents can check the map frequently to stay aware of trends in most types of crimes, such as thefts, robberies, assaults, sexual assaults, drug offenses, weapons offenses, arsons and burglaries to motor vehicles.
If residents know cars in their neighborhood have been broken into recently, for example, Marshall said they can keep an eye out for suspicious people and alert police.
Plus, the map satisfies the curiosity people feel when they hear sirens or see squad cars, Cmdr. Jason Arres said.
Map users can choose which color-coded icons depicting which types of crimes they want to appear on the map, allowing them to search for a specific violation or see the complete summary of incidents across the city. They also can choose how many days, weeks or months of data they wish to see.
Data so far starts at Sept. 1, but the idea is to eventually show a year's worth of reports at once.
“This is our plan to do what we've done internally and roll it out to the community,” Marshall said.
Once it goes live, the crime map will be updated several times a day. Arres said reports will appear once they've been written by an officer, reviewed by a supervisor and entered into the department's records management system. The internal paperwork can take hours or days, depending on the officers involved and the type of investigation.
While the map is designed to inform residents about most crimes, occurrences that won't be shown include sensitive situations such as domestic violence, offenses against children and mental health-related calls.
Jason Sheldon, a geographic information systems coordinator who helped design the crime map, said the program includes safeguards to protect privacy.
The map won't zoom in any further than the original view so people won't be able to see which exact house or building was the scene of a crime. Exact addresses aren't listed; the report only gets as specific as the hundred-block, such as the 100 block of West Jefferson Avenue.
Police leaders say they're still taking input about what features residents would like to see in the map. Feedback from a recent focus group has the team working to include information about where sex offenders live, where violent offenders live and where hate crimes have taken place.
The map will function best as a community information tool if residents give it a try and stay engaged, Arres said.
Once the service is available, it will be accessible through links on several pages of the city's website, including the police department page. Police leaders hope residents take advantage of the influx of new information and bring their questions to the quarterly “Chat with the Chief” public engagement sessions.