Naperville police saw an increase in drug arrests last year but property crimes were down and personal crimes stayed relatively consistent, according to newly released department statistics.
“The thing that I look at and I’m reassured about is just how blessed we are as a community with how safe we are,” Naperville Police Chief Jason Arres said. “A town our size having the statistics show the way they are … there’s not many towns the size of Naperville that can be able to brag about how low the crime is.”
The police department breaks down crime data into three categories: property crimes, personal crimes and crimes against society.
Crimes against society, which include drug offenses, prostitution and certain types of weapons violations, saw a 27% increase in 2025.
There were 469 incidents in that category reported last year, up from 369 in 2024.
Drug and narcotics violations went up by 36% last year, escalating from 231 offenses in 2024 to 310 offenses in 2025.
There was no one factor driving the increase since drug arrests typically result from traffic stops and longer-term investigations done by the police department’s Special Operations Group. It is possible that officers were either able to find more drug-related offenses when searching vehicles or the Special Ops Group may have received more intel that led to more arrests, Arres said.
“It’s not too often we’re called to a house or a hotel or whatever for a drug or narcotic violation,” he said.
Prostitution offenses and pornography/obscene material violations also saw increases last year. Prostitution jumped from five cases in 2024 to 13 in 2025. Similarly, pornography/obscene material cases climbed from five in 2024 to 15 in 2025.
Property crimes, which make up more than half of all the crimes committed in Naperville, decreased last year.
Specifically, there were 2,487 property crime-related incidents reported in 2024 compared to 2,291 in the following year.
“I know not to take too much credit when things are lower or to get too worried when there’s a rise in something unless it’s like astronomical,” he said.
Burglaries fell last year, with 99 reported in 2024 and 63 in 2025. Of those burglaries, 57% were at commercial locations and the rest were residential.
“That number being as low as it is at 63 when, if you look at the ‘90s and 2000s that we were in two-three-four hundred range for burglaries, to be down to 63 incidents where people are breaking into people’s houses or businesses, I just think that’s a blessing,” Arres said.
While he couldn’t cite a specific reason for the decrease, technology such as license plate readers and broader community engagement may be playing a role, he said.
Motor vehicle thefts reported last year dropped from 94 in 2024 to 52 last year. Of those, only 35 vehicles were actually stolen.
Arres also noted that thefts of Hyundai and Kia vehicles specifically were down following a decline in a social media trend that gave people step-by-step instructions on how to steal those cars.
Some property crime categories, however, did see increases. Crimes involving credit card and ATM fraud (8 cases in 2024, 23 cases in 2025), identity theft (401 in 2024, 451 in 2025) and wire fraud (none in 2024, 30 in 2025) were all up.
“I think I’d be remiss to say it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the folks that maybe were doing burglaries in the past are now engaging in more financial crimes or things of that nature, where we have seen crime higher than it had been in the past,” said Arres, noting that financial crimes made up about 35% of all property crimes last year.
Personal crimes, which are counted by the number of victims rather than the number of incidents, saw a bump from 1,000 people victimized in 2024 to 1,057 in 2025. There were no murders in Naperville last year.
More than 80% of personal crimes were simple assaults, which includes physical altercations and incidents that don’t involve weapons or serious injuries. Cases of simple assault rose from 759 in 2024 to 874 in 2025.
Domestic incidents continue to be a major contributor to personal crimes, making up 47% of all personal crimes reported last year.
Naperville police also track traffic crash data. Last year, there were 3,260 crashes that did not result in an injury, 375 that resulted in injury and four that were fatal.
Overall, there was an increase of 382 crashes over the previous year and, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, Naperville had more than 3,000 non-injury crashes, Arres said. In 2019 there were 3,403 non-injury crashes.
“Obviously, I’m disappointed,” he said. “That’s probably the one category out of all of them that stood out because that was the biggest bump that we had.”
Arres urged people to follow the law when driving to prevent more crashes.
“Whether you live in Naperville or drive through Naperville, all of these crashes have a cause to it, whether it’s speed, following someone too closely, distracted on a device,” Arres said. “If people just followed the law, drove the speed limit, kept a safe distance, didn’t pick their cell phones up, that number would potentially be zero someday.”
cstein@chicagotribune.com
