Although the number of domestic dispute and violence incidents has fallen in Urbana’s Lierman neighborhood last year, these incidents remain the top reported for the neighborhood — making up one in five reported crimes as of Dec. 4, 2023.

Lierman, located in southeast Urbana, is bounded by East Washington Street, Kinch Street, East Florida Avenue and South Philo Road. Since 2019, crimes reported in the neighborhood have predominantly been domestic disputes and domestic battery.

In 2023, police data compiled by the Urbana Police Department shows the top crimes reported in the neighborhood were 47 cases of domestic incidents, 24 cases of battery and 17 cases of theft. Overall, there were 219 crimes, so domestic incidents made up about 21%, or one in every five crimes.

A CU-CitizenAccess review of the reported crimes in the neighborhood, which are available on the Urbana Open Data Portal, shows dozens of domestic dispute and battery each year since 2019. The data begins in 1988 and ends in Feb. 2023.

A 0.3-mile radius covers most of the neighborhood and was used for this analysis, so the numbers are estimates based on that radius.

In 2019, the open data portal showed there were 48 domestic dispute cases. This number increased to 51 in 2020, then fell to 41 in 2021 and decreased further to 34 in 2022. But last year, the number of domestic incidents has increased to 47, which is about the same as four years ago. 

In 2019, there were 31 domestic battery cases, which decreased to 24 in 2020. This number jumped to 41 in 2021 and increased further to 49 in 2022. Last year, there were 24 cases of battery, but details were not provided on whether these were domestic or other types.