Police Department
SAFE-T Act: The 2021 Illinois Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act enacted extensive reform impacting many areas of policing including use of force, complaints, and misconduct, certification, and decertification, expansion of crime statistics reporting, requiring body-worn cameras, and mandating crisis intervention training. While many items are already in practice within the police department, the major changes are
going to include additional training, reporting, and policy requirements as they relate to the SAFE-T Act.
Mental Health Response: Implement a comprehensive in-house program to respond to the mental health needs of the community, and evaluate the need for a possible multijurisdictional approach for responding to people suffering from mental health crises. This effort will attempt to ensure public safety and facilitate collaboration and coordination in the event of a mental health emergency.
Body-Worn Cameras: Implement a body-worn camera system for police personnel to better safeguard the public, the Village, and the police officers. Prior to implementation, the program will adequately address policy concerns, FOIA requirements, redaction, evidence procedures, data storage, and retention.
Community Relations and Policing: Work with leaders in the community to implement the new Chief’s Advisory Council. Council members will be from diverse backgrounds, as well as business leaders and other interested residents. The committee will meet quarterly to discuss current events and police operations to provide insight and input on best practices and community needs.
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS): Complete migration to NIBRS. Implemented to improve the overall quality of crime data collected by law enforcement, NIBRS captures details on each single crime incident—as well as on separate offenses within the same incident—including information on victims, known offenders, relationships between victims and offenders, arrestees, and property involved in crimes. Unlike data reported through the UCR Program’s traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS) — an aggregate monthly tally of crimes — NIBRS goes much deeper because of its ability to
provide circumstances and context for crimes like location, and time of day, and whether the incident was cleared. All police personnel will be trained on the new reporting procedures and all police reports will be updated to accommodate new requirements.
