The 2004 crime rate in Evanston is among the lowest recorded in 40 years, a fact Evanston police attribute to a growing trust between police officers and community members.
The city’s Index Crime Rate — the total number of murders, sexual assaults, robberies, batteries, burglaries, thefts and arsons reported to police in a given year — dropped 5.5 percent from 2003, according to statistics released this week by Evanston Police Department.
There were three murders in Evanston in 2004, an increase from one in 2003. The alleged offender and the victim knew each other in two incidents: a July stabbing and an October shooting. The other was a November traffic death.
But the number of incidents of burglaries, thefts and auto thefts are all the lowest the city has seen since before 1970.
The statistics include attempted crimes but do not include crimes handled by University Police.
Chief Frank Kaminski of EPD pointed out that the city’s crime index has decreased 56 percent since 1997, a year after EPD introduced its Community Partnership initiative.
The Community Partnership initiative is a department philosophy that police and city residents should work together to stop crime.
“I don’t think (those working in) the police department are the sole ones responsible for those reduced crime rates,” Kaminski said. “That’s the collective result of everybody in this community.”
Deputy Chief Joe Bellino of EPD said programs like the Citizen Police Academy and the Community Emergency Response Team have made citizens more comfortable with calling the police and doing what they can to stop crime in their neighborhoods.
The Citizen Police Academy, a 12-week course, includes classes about use of force and 911 telecommunications. The CERT program, open to police academy graduates, trains residents to assist police in responding to an accident scene.
“Not only is there partnership-building, but there’s trust-building going on,” Bellino said.
Evanston resident Tracy Kalm, who graduated from the Citizen Police Academy in November, said the program gives citizens a “better understanding of police work” and boosts their confidence in their ability to stop crime.
“There were a number of people in our class who were going to go home and get a neighborhood watch program going,” she said.
Kalm said most of the crime she hears about in her northwest Evanston neighborhood is “people who left their car door open and have had their radio stolen or their iPod stolen.”
In 2004 property offenses — burglary, theft, auto theft and arson — accounted for 93 percent of Evanston’s crime.
In a press release, Kaminski said he is “extremely proud” of the partnership the city has built with residents. The key now, he said, is to stay committed to this partnership.
Kalm said she is glad she went through the Citizen Police Academy. She also has recommended the program to a friend.
“I said, ‘You should try this. Thursday night. It’s great, you’ll love it,'” Kalm said. “Maybe if they do us 20 at a time, they’ll get (everyone in the city) indoctrinated. Then Evanston will be crime-free. We can go back to being the bastion of temperance in this country.”
Reach Marissa Conrad at [email protected].
