New Iberia Mayor Freddie DeCourt and Police Chief Todd D’Albor go over some crime statistics in DeCourt’s office as they prepare for Monday night’s town hall to mark the first anniversary of the reconstituted NIPD.

Almost a year ago, the New Iberia Police Department began its first day of patrolling the city’s streets in more than a decade.

To celebrate its first year back, Mayor Freddie DeCourt and NIPD Chief Todd D’Albor will host a town hall meeting Monday night to release some statistics from the department’s return and to talk about where the department and the city are heading in the future.

“We’re making headway,” D’Albor said Tuesday afternoon. “We still have a certain element that we are trying to show a different way, but the progress is there. We still have a way to go.”

From 2004 to 2018, the New Iberia city government has contracted with the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office for law enforcement services. At the time that the NIPD was reconstituted last year, New Iberia was the largest city in the state without its own police force. It also was a city perceived to be struggling with a crime problem.

DeCourt said that what has most impressed him during the last year is the way New Iberia residents have embraced the new officers as part of the community.

“People are buying in to having our police on the street,” DeCourt said. “It’s reflected in the stats.”

DeCourt has said that the success of the police department has allowed his administration to move forward with other efforts, such as attracting new business and helping to grow more local investment.

D’Albor said that the numbers they have seen show not only that crime is down within the city limits but that people are communicating with police to report what they see in their neighborhoods.

“What’s pleasing about the numbers is the solve rate for crimes,” D’Albor said. “It shows that people are talking to police, that there is a conversation happening that wasn’t there before.”

Prior to taking the reins in New Iberia, D’Albor had been the police chief in Jennings. When he assumed that role in 2010, that city was suffering from a high rate of crime. In 2012, Jennings had some of the lowest crime statistics in Louisiana.

One feature of Monday’s event will be a presentation on New Iberia’s crime stats for the past calendar year and a comparison with numbers from the last calendar year under the IPSO. D’Albor said he is excited not only because of the progress they show but also what having those statistics will allow the fledgling department to do.

“When we begin filing our statistics with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting program,” D’Albor said. “That will allow us to qualify for grants and other opportunities. We need a full year, from January through December, so we won’t have that until the end of this year. We won’t have federal year-over-year comparison numbers until 2021.”

The last time New Iberia crime statistics had been filed with federal authorities was in 2011. The IPSO had quit sending them after that year.

The town hall meeting will be held Monday evening at the Sliman Theater, 129 E. Main St., in downtown New Iberia. The event begins at 6 p.m. Questions and comments from the public will be welcomed.