{"id":9648,"date":"2014-08-23T18:34:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T18:34:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=9648"},"modified":"2017-10-18T11:09:20","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T11:09:20","slug":"denver-crime-rate-up-by-almost-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2014\/08\/denver-crime-rate-up-by-almost-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver Crime Rate Up by almost 7%"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overall crime in the City and County of Denver has increased nearly 7 percent in the first six months of 2014 compared to the same period last year, according to new analyses of Colorado crime data.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The numbers, released by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), differ markedly from widely published reports claiming crime in the Mile High City has dropped since the state opened its first recreational marijuana shops Jan. 1. (This April 7 report in the Washington Post is a great example of how journalists have jumped the gun \u2014 so to speak \u2014 on declarations that \u201ccrime is down across the board.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Before unpacking the numbers, HIDTA officials said they do \u201cnot infer causality\u201d between the increased crime rates they found and the opening of Colorado\u2019s recreational pot shops, most of which are concentrated in Denver. Similarly, marijuana proponents should not claim the drug\u2019s legalization has caused crime to drop.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0OK, so why such sharp discrepancy between the numbers reported by marijuana-interest groups, marijuana-cheerleading reporters and the HIDTA analyses, which are based on data collected by the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and prepared to Denver Department of Safety Public Information Standards?<\/span><\/p>\n

Rocky Mountain HIDTA Director Tom Gorman explains:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe marijuana advocates\u2019 claims boil down to old-fashioned cherry picking. What they are not telling everybody is that they are not looking at all reported crime categories in Denver, or even at all the crimes that fall under those categories. They are taking the numbers that favor their position \u2014 and in their case, those numbers are some of the crimes included in the FBI Uniform Crime Report, Part I.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIf you want a true and complete picture of all crime in Denver, you have to look at the Denver report that uses the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIRBS) because the FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) captures only about 50 percent of all crimes reported \u2014 and tracked \u2014 in Denver.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0To illustrate how much more thoroughly NIRBS data are tracked than the UCR data, Mr. Gorman\u2019s office provided this quick chart listing only two categories of crime. The numbers in parenthesis refer to the number of subcategories of crime tracked under that larger category. (Note: For example, the FBI report looks at four subcategories of \u201cviolent crime,\u201d while the Denver Police Department tracks those four subcategories and three others under the heading \u201ccrimes against persons.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The NIRBS data show overall crime in Denver is up 6.7% when comparing the first six months of 2014 to the first six months of 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n

We encourage you to review all of the numbers\u00a0for yourself, but here are some highlights:<\/span><\/p>\n

Crimes against people in Denver County increased more than 18 percent. Under this category:<\/span><\/p>\n

There were 21 murders in the first six months of 2013 and 13 in the same period of this year. That\u2019s a drop of 38 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aggravated assault was up 2.2 percent, from 1,167 reports to 1,193.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simple assault increased 35 percent, from 1,634 reports to 2,207.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reports of intimidation jumped 45 percent, from 370 reports to 537.<\/span><\/p>\n

Forcible sex offenses dropped from 419 reports to 340 reports, or 18.9 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Non-forcible sex offenses declined from 12 to 7, or 41.7 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reports falling under the category of crimes against property fell 8 percent.\u00a0However, subcategories of crime often involving marijuana were on the rise, Mr. Gorman noted. Among them were reports of stolen property, which increased 16.4 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Criminal offences reported under the category of crimes against society increased 22.8 percent. Under this category:<\/span><\/p>\n

Drug\/Narcotics Violations increased 20.6 percent, from 1,069 reports to 1,289 reports.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weapon law violations jumped 43 percent from 209 reports to 299 reports.<\/span><\/p>\n

Criminal offences falling under the category titled \u201call other offenses,\u201d nearly doubled with an increase of 96.2 percent. Under this category:<\/span><\/p>\n

Reports of disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace skyrocketed 214 percent from 234 reports in the first six months of 2013 to 735 reports in the same period of this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Family offences considered nonviolent jumped 30 percent from 174 to 227 reports.<\/span><\/p>\n

Criminal trespassing also rocketed up 162.4 percent from from 274 reports to 719.<\/span><\/p>\n

Liquor law and drunkenness violations were up 237 percent from 27 reported offenses to 64.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like the Rocky Mountain HIDTA, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals has examined the NIRBS data. Researchers affiliated with that organization compared the first six months of each of the last five years and found that reports of simple assault and domestic violence have\u00a0risen steadily.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not inferring causality between these increases \u2026 just like legalization proponents should not infer causality regarding the downward trend observable when isolating just the UCR\u2019s Part One Crime Index,\u201d NADCP Chief Executive Officer West Huddleston recently wrote. \u201cHowever, we are promoting the position that the question remains open, and at best we can say there is contradictory evidence when trying to draw conclusions about the effect marijuana legalization has had on crime.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s past time for news organizations to report this more accurate picture of crime in Denver \u2014 and not just the numbers handed to them by marijuana proponents or the numbers they select to build their preferred narratives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Source:drthurstone.com 23rd July 2014<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overall crime in the City and County of Denver has increased nearly 7 percent in the first six months of 2014 compared to the same period last year, according to new analyses of Colorado crime data. \u00a0The numbers, released by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), differ markedly from widely published reports […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,90,12,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic","category-global-drug-legalisation-efforts","category-legal-sector","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}