More Joliet police should mean more community policing

More Joliet police officers should mean more community policing, Chief William Evans said.

The Joliet Police Department added 40 police officers in 2022 as it replaces retirees and tries to beef up its ranks.

Joliet now has 267 officers after swearing in nine more new recruits in December.

But the city had 302 officers before cutting numbers in the 2008 recession. The 2023 budget provides for 286 officers, which Chief William Evans said “is what we’re budgeted for so that’s where we want to be.”

Plans for new officers include expansion of the popular Neighborhood Oriented Policing Team program. But Evans said the department also needs more detectives and more officers in tactical units on the streets.

The department now has 21 detectives, and that’s down from 30 just a couple years ago.

“Our detectives are working very hard,” Evans said, noting the recent arrest of a suspect in the brutal murder of Maya Smith, who was found shot to death in an alley on Jan. 8. Still, Evans said “it would help us to have more manpower.”

The Neighborhood Oriented Policing Team is one of the most visible and most popular divisions of the police department.

NOPT allows officers to spend time in neighborhoods, getting to know community leaders, business owners, and average people with the goal of having close contacts for the sake of not only solving crimes but preventing them.

The police department now has 10 officers, including supervisors, in the NOPT program in six areas of the city: Forest Park, North Central, 2nd Avenue/Richards Street, Far West, Cathedral Area and the St. Pat’s Neighborhood.

Evans said the NOPT program is popular and in demand.

“Some communities are so pleased with the officer they have that they want another one,” he said.

Evans said the department will likely look first to adding communities to NOPT program before adding officers to areas already covered.

“We do foresee in the next year adding to NOPT and adding a few communities,” he said.

In the meantime, adding to the ranks of police officers is a challenge in itself faced by Joliet and other departments across the country, Evans said.

“It’s not a real popular time to be a police officer,” he said.

The city began stepping up its police hiring two years ago in anticipation of a high rate of retirements among older officers. But the recruitment effort comes at a time when increased scrutiny of police is making the job less attractive in past years.

Still, Evans said, “I think that will change as time passes.”