The Aurora Police Department was again the top municipality for DUI arrests in the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists’ recently released annual survey.
The department made 473 drunken driving arrests in 2024, an almost 30% increase from the previous year, according to AAIM’s figures.
AAIM is a Schaumburg-based citizen activist group founded in 1982 by victims of drunk driving, according to a news release from the group. It has been conducting a statewide survey of Illinois police departments annually since 1990 to analyze the number of DUI arrests police make each year. The survey is funded by a grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation.
AAIM’s mission includes prevention, victim advocacy and legislation, per the news release. The group said that the DUI arrest survey encourages citizens to compare the DUI enforcement record of their local law enforcement with that of other communities, with the goal of applying public pressure as needed to prioritize DUI enforcement.
This year, nearly 700 police agencies were surveyed, with 81% responding, according to the news release from AAIM.
The Aurora Police Department took the top spot on AAIM’s survey in 2023 as well, making 366 arrests. Its number of DUI arrests has been steadily increasing in recent years, outpacing other departments.
Due to its size, the Chicago Police Department is separated into its own category and not included on AAIM’s ranked list of municipalities. In 2024, for comparison, Chicago police made 2,609 DUI arrests, according to AAIM. Also not part of AAIM’s list, the Illinois State Police made 3,769 DUI arrests last year.
Aurora is not the only nearby municipality that saw a substantial uptick in drunken driving arrests, however. Naperville, for example, saw a 51.8% increase in DUI arrests from 2023 to 2024 — jumping from 170 arrests to 258 this past year, according to past reporting. That put Naperville fourth on AAIM’s list, behind Aurora, Rockford and West Chicago.
Other municipalities in the area also ranked high on the list. Elgin and Joliet, for example, took the sixth and 10th spots, respectively.
On the county level, Will County was ranked fifth for DUI arrests in 2024, with 133, according to AAIM’s survey. Kendall County, ranked 12th, made 80 arrests, while DuPage made 79 and took the 13th spot. Kane County, ranked 17th on the county list, made 63 DUI arrests for the year.
“Enforcing DUI laws is demanding but essential work,” AAIM Executive Director Rita Kreslin said in the release. “The entire AAIM organization sincerely appreciates the officers’ daily sacrifice, dedication to public safety and efforts to save lives. We deeply value their constant commitment.”
Aurora Police Chief Matt Thomas said traffic safety has always been a goal, but a community survey the department began conducting in recent years further made clear that traffic safety was a priority for residents.
In 2022, the department began sending out community surveys, provided through the My90 platform designed by law enforcement technology company Axon, to those who have contacted the police department, according to past reporting.
Results of the survey, released in 2024, showed traffic offenses as one of the community’s top concerns.
And drunk driving is part of a significant number of fatal crashes, with 32% of all traffic fatalities in the United States involving at least one driver being alcohol-impaired, per 2022 data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That percentage was slightly higher in Illinois, at 37% in 2022.
Thomas said the Aurora department has focused on DUI and reckless driving enforcement, putting more police cars on the street for traffic enforcement, including some for DUI enforcement specifically.
Hiring more officers, too, has enabled the department to assign more to traffic enforcement — a priority that’s been more possible, he said, as the nature of policing in the city shifted.
“We were fortunate, also, as a matter of timing, our violent crimes have decreased over the years in Aurora, so that’s allowed us to focus on traffic safety,” Thomas said on Friday. “It’s freed up our officers to do more of those things.”
According to AAIM’s numbers, Aurora had 326 sworn officers as of 2024, making for an addition of 19 officers since 2020. The city’s DUI arrest rate was 1.45 per officer in 2022, according to AAIM’s survey.
The department also provides training for officers on issues related to DUI enforcement, Thomas noted.
Thomas and Deputy Police Chief Steven Stemmet, who previously worked on the department’s midnight shift, for which DUI enforcement was a goal, also pointed to the city’s recent vehicular nuisance ordinance, which cracks down on things like street racing and stunts, according to past reporting.
As for DUI enforcement as a public safety priority, Thomas pointed out that officers often see fatal crashes first-hand, some of which involve alcohol-impaired driving.
“That sticks with you,” he said. “That has (an) impact on you.”
And Thomas in large part attributed the department’s high number of DUI arrests to the work of the city’s police force and its commitment to try and prevent such incidents.
“I feel that they’re just hard workers,” he said. “They’re committed to making sure that our streets are safe, that the community’s safe.”
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
