Darien Not Sugarcoating Crime Data: Police

DARIEN, IL — When Darien police mailed a letter to residents about local crime earlier this month, one person suggested the city was sugarcoating the data. But Police Chief Greg Thomas said that was not the case.

"The data is what the data is," Thomas said in his monthly report to the City Council this week. "How to count crime is 'regulated' by the FBI through their Uniform Crime Reports."

The chief said he had two purposes in writing the letter: Emphasize that Darien is a safe town and suggest that Darien can become safer.

Thomas said residents sent him messages talking about the increase in crime, especially car burglaries. But he said the reality is that such burglaries actually have gone down and overall crime has stayed the same.

"So while we want to be transparent, in doing so it has the tendency, if taken out of context, to appear that crime is going up and that drives up fear and non-based fear leads to bad decisions," Thomas said in the report.

The letter described a spike in house burglaries, which started in October and typically happened between noon and 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. On those days, Thomas said, the department assigned officers in unmarked cars to try to catch the burglars. But that effort was unsuccessful, he said. On Sunday through Wednesday, additional officers were in marked cars to give the public a sense of security, Thomas said.

Car burglaries, the chief said, have been talked about a lot. The city has tweeted out information on the latest incidents. That additional communication has made it appear that Darien experienced more car burglaries than what really occurred, he said. But the the 10-year trend shows exactly the opposite, he said.

"I would hope, no way of really knowing, that our additional communication has encouraged more people to lock their doors and take their items inside their home and business from their car or locked items in the trunk," Thomas said.