Community
Survey Summary
Community
Survey Summary
Click Here For Complete Survey (PDF)
The Wilmette Police Department conducts a triennial community survey to learn about perceptions, opinions, and specific concerns regarding police performance, services, personnel and programs.
In late 2006, surveys were mailed to 1,000 persons randomly selected from the Village of Wilmette water billing database. Of the 1,000 questionnaires mailed, 413 responses were returned for a 41.3% return rate, which is higher than the 25.2% response rate of 2003. Survey respondents did not answer every question; therefore the various tables in this report contain different numbers of responses and seldom equal 413. Coincidentally, survey respondents were almost equally distributed throughout the village, providing a fair representation of village wide concerns and opinions.
In past and present surveys, respondents reported Police Department personnel who they have had contact with during the survey period. In the 2006 survey, respondents reported the highest number of contacts with uniformed patrol (43.6%), followed by Police Telecommunicators (26.88%), with the next highest being Animal Control (7.9%) and Detectives (7.2%).
There are several new sections in this year’s survey. For the first time, this survey asked questions about how safe people feel while walking in their own neighborhoods and in the Village Center during daylight and at night. In addition, the survey also asked questions about traffic enforcement and whether respondents would be interested in attending crime prevention meetings.
The table on the following page compares average ratings of Wilmette Police performance on nine (9) dimensions, over the past 15 years. The Wilmette Police Department received higher ratings this year than those from the last survey in every performance dimension measured and the highest ratings ever received in eight (8) of the nine (9) areas.