Bloomington Police publish 2023 Annual Report
Written by Alexandra Courson on March 24, 2024
Image Courtesy of the Bloomington Police Department
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. –The Bloomington Police Department released their 2023 annual report. The report highlights new hires, special events and statistics of the department.
In 2023, BPD hired new police officers, made several technological additions and attended over 300 community events. The report includes crime statistics, awards, recruitment statistics and more. Over 17,000 reports were written, 6 were awarded for lifesaving and 18 police officers were hired.
Public Information Officer Bryce Janssen said, “We want to increase our reach to everyone in the community and we want to be representative of our community, as well, so that includes having men and women working for the Bloomington Police Department as well as individuals of different backgrounds.”
Janssen talked about how last year went for BPD. According to him, training is an important part in BPD’s improvement. It can reduce the amount of complaints the department receives, as well. Last year 17 formal complaints were filed going down from 2022’s 21 complaints.
“As far as we’re concerned, increasing our training on how to deal with people that are undergoing some type of crisis and some type of stress can also reduce the number of complaints we get based on just being able to talk and de-escalate and things of that nature,” he said.
All officers in BPD are certified in CIT training which deals with crisis intervention. This teaches officers how to handle individuals who might be experiencing a mental crisis or might be under the influence of drugs or narcotics. They learn how to de-escalate the situation.
“That is something all of our officers are trained in and obviously something we take very seriously,” he said.
The Assistant Chief of Professional Standards helped to progress BPD’s 30×30 program which advances representation and experiences of women in policing. Janssen explains why this is beneficial to the community.
Janssen said, “We have increased our number of female officers recently and that’s obviously a good thing to have, because, once again, you’ve got individuals that have different backgrounds and it’s always good to have that represented in any organization and especially a police department.”
Last year, BPD implemented a community engagement unit. This is to get BPD out to any organization as a way to talk and connect with the community.
Janssen said, “We can talk in an area that isn’t exactly work related. Somewhere that’s laid back and we can all talk openly, interact and let everybody know that, ‘hey, look we have a human side.’ You know, we’re not robots like we’re often portrayed, so that’s a big thing getting out in the community and getting involved in every organization.”
The 2023 Annual Report can be found on the City of Bloomington’s website.
