While the United States saw a surprising  3.9% decrease in the general violent crime rate in 2018 from the 2017 estimate according to the FBI’s 2018 online Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Naperville has seen an even greater decrease.

According to the FBI UCR program, the violent crime per 100,000 persons rate has gone down nearly 25.30% since 2017. Naperville currently holds 145,000 of the U.S’ 327 million residents. 

Naperville has recently been titled the second safest city in America due to the 2018 crime reports released in October by the FBI, 24/7 Wall Street and USA Today.

“While Chicago is one of the most dangerous cities in the country, … Naperville is one of the safest,” USA Today’s Samuel Stebbins and Evan Comen stated in their October publication.  

Naperville has an incredibly low 

violent crime rate when compared to other suburban cities in the United States. While other cities in America with populations above 100,000 have much higher rates of violent crime, most above 500, Naperville only had 69 crimes reported for every 100,000 people in 2018.

Both the U.S. and the city of Naperville have seen a significant decrease in estimated violent crime since 2016, but an obvious outlier for both populations is the increased reports of rape, which is one of the only four crimes considered a violent crime by the FBI. 

While murder/non-negligent manslaughter, aggravated assault and robbery, which are the other three acts not considered property crimes, have continued to decrease in frequency, rape has not. 

However, compared to Chicago’s 1006 reported violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2018, Naperville serves as a surprising oasis away from the typical violent crimes expected of a city its size.