A revamped “transparency” section on the Springfield Police Department website shows this year’s stunningly low rate of shootings as well as familiar clusters of violent crime and traffic stops on the economically disadvantaged east side.
Mayor Misty Buscher and Police Chief Joseph Behl say the new “interactive dashboards,” scheduled to go live sometime this week, are part of their push to use data to both illuminate trends and guide public policy.
“It is honest information about what is going on in the Springfield community,” Buscher told Illinois Times. “It could be viewed as positive or negative by some people. But the truth is what’s on the dashboard. We’re not changing anything. We’re not hiding anything. The dashboard shows truly what’s going on in the community. I have never been afraid of talking about what is really going on.”
The new section of the police department’s transparency page adds to existing listings that include monthly crime statistics reported each month to the FBI, news releases and details of controversial or high-profile cases.
What’s new are interactive bar graphs and charts based on publicly available data on more than 96,000 police reports from January 2021 to the present. The information is summarized and presented for the city as a whole, by ward, neighborhood, time of day and sometimes by location when it comes to various types of crimes.
Breakdowns by race, gender and age group often are available, too. Specific residences and specific residential addresses aren’t displayed so residents’ privacy can be maintained, Behl said.
The new dashboards will be updated every 24 hours and were produced internally by the police department and the city’s information technology staff. The displays didn’t require an outside contract or additional spending by the city, Buscher said.
The mayor and Behl acknowledged that the police department has faced criticism from people who disagree with the amount and type of force used by police in certain cases. Critics have objected to the mayor’s and Springfield City Council’s use of city revenues for police pay raises rather than other priorities.
Critics also have objected to the concentration of police patrols in certain parts of the community, and they allege police bias in the handling of some cases.
Buscher and Behl also acknowledged findings of the ACLU, based on data collected by the Illinois Department of Transportation, that Black people in Springfield – like in many similar and larger communities across the state – are much more likely than whites to be stopped by police while driving.
But Buscher, who is seeking reelection to another four-year term in 2027 and so far has no announced challengers, said the dashboards aren’t intended to deflect criticism. More conveniently accessible data actually could lead to more criticism, the mayor said. “I never expect less,” she said with a laugh.
Rather, Buscher said the dashboards, in the works since spring, are part of her focus since she was elected in 2023 to improve the collection and analysis of data in all parts of city government.
“A data-driven city, to me, is a productive city,” she said.
Two of the new dashboards, which will provide more information about the use of force and internal-affairs investigation, won’t be immediately available. Data in those categories are recorded with a software system that is different from the other statistics. A fix is in the works, and Behl said he hopes the two remaining dashboards can go live soon.
One of the new dashboards displays statistics involving gunshot victims in a variety of ways, including the number of fatalities. The dashboard shows a surprising detail – that there were six gunshot victims citywide in 2026 as of Aug. 3.
It’s more than halfway through the year, and 2026’s total compares with 43 in all of 2025, 43 in 2024, 31 in 2023, 33 in 2022 and 69 in 2021.
“It’s really unusual,” Behl said of this year’s significantly lower total.
He said he doesn’t know why this year’s number is so much lower, but both he and Buscher noted that the city has increased the number of sworn police officers on staff during Buscher’s term. The total now stands at about 270 officers.
In addition, Behl and Buscher said the police department street-crimes unit that was disbanded in 2020 has been reinstituted, and police are seizing more illegal guns than in previous years.
“Our officers are motivated,” Behl said. “They want to do proactive police work. They want to take the most dangerous criminals off the streets. And they want to take guns off the streets.”
Behl said the new and additional data will be “extremely eye-opening for the community.”
“No. 1,” he said, “I think crime gets over-reported. If you look at social media, you may have one event, but it gets reported 12 times.”
In addition, Behl said, “We get a lot of flak and a lot of pushback for policing in particular areas of Springfield. Well, the reason the police are there is because we’re called there.”
He said Springfield’s is “ahead of the game” compared with similar-size communities “when it comes to information sharing and transparency.”
According to Behl, the new dashboards help explain the need for the city’s continued use of automatic license-plate recognition cameras.
The city has faced criticism for its contract with Flock Safety for those cameras, though Buscher said the city has many protections in place to prevent violations of privacy.
Behl said 70% to 80% of crime is “vehicle-borne … in some form or fashion, there’s almost always a vehicle involved. That’s why license-plate readers are so important.”
Dean Olsen is a senior staff writer with Illinois Times. He can be reached at dolsen@illinoistimes.com, 217-679-7810 or www.x.DeanOlsenIT.
This article appears in August 6-12, 2026.
