Scoring the most candy and seeing the coolest houses are two integral parts of a successful Halloween night. But for parents and guardians, there’s one more piece to the perfectly spooky — but not quite scary — trick-or-treating game plan: safety.
Look no further than Naperville.
For innocuous thrills and chills, the city is No. 1, according to a recently released study ranking the top safest U.S. cities to go trick-or-treating. The list, compiled by product research company Chamber of Commerce, considers factors like crime, pedestrian deaths and law enforcement presence to determine where a worry-free Halloween is most likely to happen.
Naperville came in first out of more than 300 places evaluated across the country. That’s a step up from even last year, when the city ranked No. 4 on the same tally heading into Halloween 2022.
“Expecting a small, suburban community to top the list? Think again,” the 2023 ranking reads. “Naperville, a Chicago suburb and Illinois’ third-largest city with nearly 150,000 residents, holds the title.”
Analyzing cities with a population of no less than 100,000, the study took into account five equally weighted metrics: pedestrian fatalities, violent crime, property crime, number of registered sex offenders and number of law enforcement employees. Chamber of Commerce used numbers from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the FBI to compile its report.
For Naperville, the company found the city “retains the charm and security of a tight-knit community” with few registered sex offenders, an “excellent record of property crime” and relatively few violent crimes reported across the whole city over the past year.
Full stats for Naperville — calculated per 10,000 residents — included: 2.1 sex offenders, 3.6 violent crimes, 47.4 property crimes, 0.11 average annual pedestrian fatalities and 16.8 law enforcement employees, Chamber of Commerce reported.
Of the 25 cities tapped as the company’s top safest places for trick-or-treating this year, Naperville was only one of two Midwest communities to land a spot, with Rochester, Minnesota, coming in at No. 24. As for the rest, Texas, Arizona and California were home to a bulk of listed cities.
Aside from Chamber of Commerce, by Naperville’s own standards, safety also scores high.
A community survey released last week found that, among a host of other factors related to city services and public sentiment, residents generally feel safe and secure. The city’s survey, conducted in partnership with social science research firm Polco, showed 95% of residents questioned felt safe from violent crime and 91% felt safe from property crime.
In general, 96% of respondents rated the overall feeling of safety in Naperville as excellent or good.