City of Highland Park Launches Citizen Connect Portal
Interactive public safety software provides transparency to residents
March 17, 2022 – The City of Highland Park is pleased to announce the launch of the Citizen Connect portal, an interactive public safety map presented in partnership with the Village of Glenview and neighboring communities served by Glenview Public Safety dispatch. Through the Citizen Connect portal, residents may view data pertaining to a variety of public safety incidents as selected by the participating Police Departments in Glencoe, Glenview, Highland Park, Kenilworth, Northfield, Niles, and Winnetka. The map is available to the public at cityhpil.com/incidentmap.
Citizen Connect’s interface allows users to select a date range and incident type filters; jurisdiction boundaries are clearly defined. Users may also browse by address or view all pins in a list. Data uploads are delayed by one week following approval of a case report. In the interest of preserving individuals’ privacy, location data is reported as a hundred block, not an exact address, and any sex crimes are reported at the police department for the relevant community.
“The new Citizen Connect portal enhances the ability of Highland Park and our neighboring communities to keep our residents informed about public safety incidents in our area and encourages community members to be proactive about crime prevention,” said City Manager Ghida Neukirch. “Highland Park is very appreciative of our partnership with Glenview Public Safety, and the ongoing collaboration across participating communities that has produced this informative tool.”
Citizen Connect directly supports a key component of the Police Department’s new strategic plan: working to build trust through community engagement, in alignment with the 10 Shared Principles of Public Safety. The Shared Principles, developed through a partnership of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the Illinois NAACP, provide a framework for public safety services that is community-centered and values-based. Citizen Connect supports Shared Principle #6 and its endorsement of community policing.
“Providing our residents with timely public safety information is critical to preventing crime and helping community members become partners in keeping our community safe,” said Chief of Police Lou Jogmen. “The 10 Shared Principles of Public Safety rightly encourage police officers to continually seek new ways of engaging with residents and sharing information. Transparency establishes trust, which in turn empowers community members to be proactive in preventing crime and confident in reporting incidents as they occur, knowing that officers they recognize and trust will be ready to assist them.”
Citizen Connect is one of several community education and engagement initiatives the Highland Park Police Department has launched over the past five years. Among others, the Police Beat Coordinator Program assigns a dedicated beat officer to Highland Park neighborhoods to welcome new residents, assist with quality of life concerns, and nuisance complaints such as noise, graffiti, and parking. In addition, the Police Department regularly produces informational PSAs to assist residents in preventing crime, engages in community advocacy and specialty training, and hosts a variety of special events throughout the year.
More information about the Police Department’s five-year strategic plan, the 10 Shared Principles of Public Safety, and other community engagement initiatives is available at cityhpil.com/police.
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