DANVILLE, Ill. (WCIA) — Danville Police Department’s annual 2024 report is out. While it shows that some violent crime has increased from 2023, homicides have gone down. 

That trending decline started years ago from when homicides reached 12. 

“Something as critical as that or as traumatic as that is going to impact a lot of people’s lives, so we definitely have to go head on in that,” said Police Chief Chris Yates.

The majority of what the department calls “quality of life” crimes are also down. This includes shootings with victims, sexual assaults and shots fired — which dropped almost 75% from 2020.

There was an uptick from 2023 to 2024 in other violent crimes like rapes, robberies and burglaries, but a wider look at the data shows the incidents are declining over time.

“In a perfect world, we would say that any time there’s a violent crime the community is appalled by that and it’s not just another crime,” Yates said. 

Yates said while the majority of the numbers are pointing in the right direction, that’s only part of the picture. Their job is to not only react and mitigate crime, but to gauge how the community feels.

“We can tell them any number we want, but if there’s people within different neighborhoods that don’t feel that way, then those numbers are just numbers that mean absolutely nothing to them,” Yates said.

That in mind, Yates said he hopes people in Danville are open and willing to interact with the police so trust can continue to be built. 

“Doesn’t happen in a day, it doesn’t happen in two days,” Yates said. “It’s a  process that we have to continue building a relationship with our community.”

Also worth pointing out from the report, calls for service and arrests have gone up since 2023. Of the about 1,500 cases the department handles, 90% percent have been closed. 

The full report is available here.