Evansville Police Say Residents Feel Safer. Half as Many Residents Answered the Survey.

An Evansville Police Department patrol car, photographed in 2014. Photo: Raymond Wambsgans / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Evansville's police department put out the same community survey twice in two years. The second time around, about half as many people bothered to fill it out. That didn't stop the department from leading with the good news.

The Evansville Police Department is touting its 2026 Community Survey, which found residents' overall sense of safety up nearly six percentage points, WNIN reported Friday. The rollout lands days before Mayor Stephanie Terry and EPD open a two-part “Safer Evansville” town hall series on Wednesday.

Here is the headline figure: 61.1% of respondents said they feel safe in Evansville overall, up from 55.1% in the 2024 survey. Then the figure that came with it. Only 452 people responded this year, compared with 861 last time, according to WJLT, which noted the results “reflect those who chose to weigh in.”

Four in every thousand

The city describes Evansville as home to more than 115,000 residents in its own town hall announcement. Measured against that, 452 responses works out to roughly four for every 1,000 people in town.

Nor was it a random sample. EPD's survey was a voluntary, anonymous online form that took about 10 minutes, with paper copies in the lobby of the Crime Prevention Unit at the C.K. Newsome Center, the department said when it posted the link. The department tied the survey to CALEA Standard 45.2.2, a benchmark set by the national commission that accredits police agencies. By July, EPD was already telling 14 News it had received fewer responses than in 2024 and asking more people to take part.

“It gives us a really good idea what image and what kind of service we're providing to the city and that's vital to us,” EPD Sgt. Anthony Aussieker said then. “If there are areas that we're just completely falling off, we have to address that.”

None of that makes the result false. It does make it thin. A voluntary survey hears from the people motivated to answer it, and a department grading its own report card should say so as loudly as it says the score went up.

Read past the top line

Some of the details aren't so rosy. Of the 452, 83% said they feel very or somewhat safe in their neighborhood during the day, but just 57.2% said the same about nighttime, WJLT reported. About 72% said they feel safe around EPD officers, and 78% said they'd be comfortable approaching one for help. Only 61.7% believe officers act in the community's best interest, and 56.7% said they're satisfied with their overall experience with the department.

Asked what bothers them most, respondents put traffic and speeding first at 40.4%, then drugs at 31.7%, more police presence at 26.8%, burglaries and thefts at 23.4%, and gun violence and homicide at 21.1%. That third item deserves a second look: more than a quarter of the people who answered want more patrols, not fewer.

Town halls after the budget is done

The first town hall runs 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, at the Dream Center, 1516 N. Main St., and is billed as a look at crime trends and “how data is helping shape enforcement strategies,” the city said. The second, on Thursday, Oct. 29, at Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 1800 S. Governor St., turns to prevention and trust. Both include breakout sessions, and the feedback is supposed to feed a “community-driven public safety roadmap.” Chief Philip Smith, Prosecutor Diana Moers, Sheriff Noah Robinson, Magistrate Judge Celia Pauli and Judge Gary Schutte are listed as speakers, WNIN reported.

“Safety is the number one priority of city government,” Terry said in the announcement. Smith called public safety “a shared responsibility” and said, “we want to hear from the community about what they're seeing.”

Residents who already spoke up got a preview of how that works. On Oct. 5, the City Council adopted a 2027 budget of more than $152 million that includes $182,000 for Flock Safety license-plate cameras, a line item that drew criticism from residents, 14 News reported. A majority of councilors voted for it “despite public sentiment,” the Courier & Press wrote. Smith defended the cameras at that meeting. “We've had Flock here since 2021, and we've not had one officer violate the policy or procedure of Flock usage in Evansville, Indiana,” he said. Officials said the cameras can still come up at future meetings.

The same night, the council also passed a 180-day pause on new data-center development, InkFreeNews reported, something the Hoosier Enquirer previewed before the vote. On that one, Council President Ben Trockman pointed to the concern residents kept sending to council members' inboxes.

So the roadmap process starts with the spending already locked in for next year and a report card based on 452 voluntary answers. Wednesday's meeting at the Dream Center is the next chance for the rest of a 115,000-person city to be counted.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.