Violent crime down in Joliet

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Officer Eric Stanley, with the Joliet Police Department, dusts for fingerprints during a burglary to motor vehicle response on the near west side Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, in Joliet. | Matthew Grotto~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: March 1, 2012 8:32AM

JOLIET — Nancy Rivera parked her SUV at the back of a relative’s driveway Thursday afternoon.

She was going to leave a few minutes later, but plans changed and Rivera ended up spending the night in the near west side neighborhood off Black Road.

“I came out (Friday) morning and saw the visors were down. I went to the door and saw everything was taken out of the center console,” Rivera said. “I didn’t touch anything. I just called the police.”

While Rivera was cursing herself for leaving the vehicle unlocked, she’s not alone. Eighty-one percent of Joliet’s reported car burglaries last year were unlocked vehicles.

The good news is both violent crime and property crime were down in 2011, according to summaries provided by the Joliet Police Department. This data will be submitted for national crime statistics.

Joliet had eight homicides last year, the second-lowest total of the last seven years. Reports of aggravated battery with a firearm — where someone is shot — and aggravated discharge of a firearm — where someone is shot at — were also at or near their lowest number since before 2005.

Including reports of shots fired, police responded to 488 gun incidents last year — a decrease of nearly 100 fewer calls from the peak of 585 two years ago.

Chief Mike Trafton believes one of the reasons for the decrease is Area Based Crime Response, where incidents are assigned point values based on severity, frequency and proximity to other crimes.

“If you want to make the most impact, you want to go where the most crime is,” Trafton said. “There’s more to it than just responding to calls. With limited resources, we have to put officers in the hotspots.”

For 2011, three areas had a high enough concentration of shooting incidents to be considered “hotspots,” Des Plaines, Joliet and Ottawa streets south of downtown; the area between Richards Street and Rowell Avenue further east, and the Forest Park neighborhood on the far northeast side, which is also known as “The Hill.”

The number and severity of incidents stayed about the same between 2010 and 2011 in the eastern and central sections of the city, but substantially decreased on the west side.

Last year, 183 guns were seized by police, the lowest total in five years and a decrease of 28-percent from 2010.

“Twenty percent of all guns were taken from gang members (and) 83-percent of guns taken from gang members occurred in the East District,” police reported.

The hotspots are evaluated weekly with data provided to the command staff and supervising officers.

“The data prevents a knee-jerk reaction and keeps us or moves us where the incidents occur,” Trafton said.

“Those meetings also have us working with parole and probation officers to keep an eye on who is going to be coming into a neighborhood.”

Judi Booklund has lived in the Reedswood area for 15 years and said it “seems to be a safe neighborhood.”

“You recognize the same people out walking their dogs or on the street,” she said. “There aren’t a lot of strangers, (but) you don’t see a lot of police cars either. I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing them more often.”

Booklund could recall only one recent burglary on her street.

Break-ins were down 3 percent citywide in 2011, but were still up substantially over the last five years.

Of the 952 burglaries at houses and businesses, 46 percent were the result of doors or windows being forced open. Two-thirds of the break-ins occurred between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. and electronics remain the most popular item to steal, being taken 30 percent of the time.

Burglaries involving construction items, including copper, increased from 7 percent to 11 percent in 2011.

While the 890 car burglaries reported in 2011 was better than the 941 reported the year before, “the totals still remain higher than in other previous years,” police said.

The eastern and central districts saw noticeable decreases, but vehicle break-ins rose in the west district. About 8 percent of 2011 car burglary cases resulted in an arrest.

As an evidence technician Eric Stanley checked for fingerprints Friday morning, it appeared nothing had been taken from Rivera’s unlocked car.

“I never keep anything valuable in there anyway,” she said.

Most of the neighbors cars were kept in garages or locked overnight, but police suspected someone had passed through trying door handles overnight.

“In this economy, I guess (thieves) will look for anything,” Rivera said. “But I think this is a good neighborhood.”

Officer Dave Friend who took the report agreed with both of Rivera’s statements.

“I live in this neighborhood too,” he said.