Personal crimes increased slightly in the first half of the year but property crimes remained stable, according to mid-year data released this week by the Naperville Police Department.
The report examined crime and incident data reported between Jan. 1 and June 30. The numbers for that time frame were compared with data from the same time frame going back to 2023.
“It’s an encouraging sign,” Naperville Police Chief Jason Arres said. “Our numbers are so moderate compared to towns our size.”
The police department breaks down crime data into three categories: property crimes, personal crimes and crimes against society.
About 60% of all reported incidents for this year’s first six months fell into the property crimes category, which includes theft, vandalism and fraud.
There were 1,126 property crime cases reported compared to 1,133 for the same time period last year, a difference of seven cases. That follows decreases from mid-year crime data for 2024 and 2023, which saw 1,194 and 1,304 incidents respectively.
“If there was something I was very pleased about, it was how low our robbery numbers were,” Arres said.
So far, there have been five robberies reported this year, the first time in the past three years that they were in the single digits for a mid-year crime report.
Financial crimes, which often result from scam emails or phone calls, made up 36% of all property offenses reported between January and June. There were 67 vehicle burglaries reported in the first half of the year, 84% of which involved unlocked vehicles. Similarly, 17 vehicles were reported stolen but only two showed signs of forced entry.
In most of these incidents, simple measures such as verifying a caller’s identity and locking cars could have prevented someone from being victimized, Arres said.
“We talk about securing your vehicle and not leaving keys or key fobs inside. (That) would have taken away 15 of our 17 stolen cars,” he said.
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In the category of personal crimes, measured by number of victims and not incidents, there have 528 people victimized compared to 474 for the same time period last year, a difference of 54 cases.
Compared to mid-year reports for the past three years, 2026 had the highest number of personal crimes. In 2024, 496 people were victimized; the number was 490 in 2023.
Personal crime accounts for a quarter of all crimes committed in Naperville and includes cases of murder, assault and kidnapping/unlawful restraint.
Similar to previous years, about 92% of personal crimes reported fell under the categories of simple assault or intimidation. Simple assault are altercations and incidents that don’t involve weapons or serious injuries, including domestic incidents. There were 397 reports of simple assault and 88 of intimidation.
“We had 201 incidents of domestic battery, which is 65% of our simple assaults,” Arres said. “That’s just concerning in the sense that family crime is still an issue and we really want our community to know there are resources out there.”
The chief emphasized that anyone who is a victim of domestic violence should reach out to the police department’s victim advocate.
Crimes against society, including prostitution, drug and weapons offenses, decreased slightly, going from 278 incidents last year to 227 incidents so far this year. By comparison, the first half of 2024 saw 207 crimes against society and the first half of 2023 saw 192.
Offenses that fall under crimes against society, the report said, are often discovered through proactive police work rather than calls from victims.
“While it’s down, our efforts aren’t down and really, it’s only down in comparison to last year because if you go back two years or three years, every one of those categories except the weapons violations are actually higher than (2023) and (2024),” Arres said.
He did note that he was happy to see that officers were finding fewer firearms in vehicles.
One location where police have seen a drop firearms violations has been at the Topgolf Naperville parking lot. Officers started making firearms arrests there in 2023 and for about two years, gun busts there were nearly a monthly occurrence. Those arrests started dropping off in 2026, though Arres said the decrease in the first half of the year is not necessarily because of one specific business or location.
“My folks are all over the city, proactively looking for all different kinds of violations,” he said. “It is reassuring to know that we’re not seeing as many of those because we’re out there, again, policing just as proactively and we’re just not coming across them as much.”
It should be noted that due to a change in the police department’s online reporting system, mid-year crime incidents for 2025 were higher in this year’s report than they were last year, he said. The 2025 mid-year crime report showed 910 property crimes, 457 personal crimes and 276 crimes against society.
Despite the adjustment, Arres said the corrected numbers do not raise any major red flags for him in regard to Naperville crime trends.