Property crime rose nearly 8% in Naperville last year over 2022, according to statistics released by the Naperville Police Department.
While personal crimes dipped in 2023, property offenses accounted for about 65% of Naperville’s total reported crime for the year, most of which involved theft, fraud or vandalism, data shows.
City police reported 2,589 crimes against property in 2023, up 181 from 2,408 property crimes in 2022.
Other crime categories showing year-to-year jumps were shoplifting, motor vehicle theft and vandalism/criminal damage.
Reports of shoplifting increased by more than 57%, from 243 in 2022 to 383 in 2023.
Shoplifting is exactly what it sounds like, Naperville Police Chief Jason Arres said, where someone goes into a business and steals items for sale. That’s different from burglary, when someone unlawfully breaks into a residence or a business to steal something, Arres said.
It’s a crime that the chief said he wants to monitor more closely going forward.
“We’re already looking at ways to dig down a little bit more about where our high-priority shoplifting locations (are),” he said.
It’s hard to say whether the jump in shoplifting crimes last year was due to businesses being more diligent about reporting incidents or if crime really spiked, Arres said.
“Do I feel like there’s more theft at businesses? I don’t know,” he said. “I think it would be subjective for me to give an opinion, but it could be as simple as they’re reporting more of those thefts.”
As for burglary, after two years of relatively low numbers, reports in 2023 surpassed 100 cases for the first time since 2020. Of the 111 burglary cases reported last year, 57 were to commercial properties and 51 were to residences.
Two-thirds of residential burglaries involved homes that were left unlocked or unsecured, but that was true for less than a quarter of commercial burglaries, according to police.
Again, though, Arres qualified the data, saying that while he was disappointed to see rates increase last year, burglaries were still lower in 2023 than they were in 2019 or 2020, when more than 150 burglaries were reported annually.
“You don’t want to see any category go up, but that’s why with statistics, it’s important to look at them in three-, five- and 10-year trends because if (we) were to go back to burglaries in the ’90s, that number would be in the 300 to 400 count per year,” he said.
Motor vehicle thefts increased 62%, from 50 in 2022 to 81 in 2023. Of those, police say 35 are believed to be tied to a string of Hyundai and Kia thefts inspired by a social media trend — dubbed the “Kia Boys” — where young people learn, step by step, how to steal Kias and Hyundais through videos posted to platforms such as TikTok.
While vehicle thefts rose, theft of vehicle parts dropped by more than 81%, down to 41 cases in 2023 over 223 in 2022, police stats show. Fewer catalytic converter thefts was the driving force behind that decrease, Arres said.
The exhaust system part is commonly stolen because it contains precious metals that can be resold for a high price. But last year, metal prices dropped, Arres said, making the converters less of a valuable commodity.
Nationally, the number of catalytic converter theft claims dropped in the first half of 2023 — the first time that’s happened since 2019 — according to data from insurance company State Farm.
The last property crime to see significant change in Naperville’s 2023 report was vandalism and criminal damage, which increased by more than 37% last year. That includes, for instance, the damage done to the Apple Store in downtown Naperville last November when a car drove into the business and took down its glass front doors.
For personal crimes, the largest year-to-year differences were in simple assault victims and reports of intimidation. Victims of simple assault crimes dropped nearly 20%, from 917 in 2022 to 737 in 2023, while victims of intimidation nearly doubled, from 181 in 2022 to 355 in 2023.
There were no reported murders in 2023, and drug/narcotic violations decreased by 32%.
Despite several high profile gun seizures last year, weapon law violations — essentially unlawful possession of guns and other weapons — decreased from 148 in 2022 to 116 in 2023.
Other notable stats include a significant decline in the number of traffic crashes reported.
Data shows there were 2,360 crashes in 2023, down from 2,863 crashes — about 17.5% — from 2022. Two crash fatalities were reported in 2023, on par with stats from the previous year but down from six in 2021 and five in 2020.
Overall, “I’m super happy with the fact that we continue to remain an extremely safe city, and that’s played out in these crime statistics,” Arres said, adding that he “directly (attributes) it to the great job that the men and women of the Naperville Police Department are doing each and every day.”
He also extended “kudos to the community for partnering with us” and “being good witnesses.”