Crime In Boulder County!
Colorado is a state known for its natural beauty and active lifestyle. It attracts people from other states and countries, who come to visit for a holiday or move here permanently. The state is divided into 64 counties and Boulder County is one of them. It is home to the University of Colorado — Boulder. It is fair to assume that parents and families thinking about sending their children to Boulder to study are interested in knowing whether it is a safe place. This leads to my research questions, whose answers will help the public find out whether Colorado and Boulder are safe. How is crime related to demography in the counties of Colorado? How does Boulder County compare with other counties for crime statistics and what are the temporal trends in Boulder County?
These questions prompted an analysis of two data sets. The State Demography Office publishes county-level estimates of population, births, deaths, and housing at an annual frequency. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation maintains a reporting database of crimes that aggregates data to monthly county-level statistics.
Before we jump into the analysis, let us consider the measurement of crime. Why are measurement and reporting important and what are some of the challenges with it? Walden University says that national crime statistics are important, since they can lead to safer communities. For close to 100 years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been collecting data about crime in the United States. These are used by multiple stakeholders, such as researchers, politicians, and law enforcement agencies to inform budget decisions and other actions they may need to take to address the problem areas. I think the measurement and reporting of crime statistics is important, since the general public needs to factor this information into their decision to relocate from one place to another in the country.
Netivist and the London School of Economics and Political Science highlight the challenges related to measuring crime statistics. The article mentioned a few issues with police-recorded crime statistics, such as crime definitions changing over time, the potential unwillingness of the public to report a crime to the police (perhaps due to mistrust), and, in rare cases, instances of police malpractice where the crime numbers are fudged and kept artificially low in order to reach certain targets. Yet another major source of crime information is victimization surveys, but even they have limitations. Some examples include a focus on adults resulting in undercounting of crimes against children, inaccuracy of victim accounts, missing certain types of crimes such as domestic violence or drug trafficking, and missing victims that may be living in prisons, universities, or on the street. Despite the challenges with the collection and reporting of crime statistics, they are still a critical source of information for any research and analysis.
The first research question is whether crimes against persons have increased, decreased, or stayed constant in Boulder County over the years. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation includes crimes such as murder, homicide, kidnapping, and assault in the category called crimes against persons. As students of CU Boulder residing in Boulder County, we often hear news about crimes committed against students and citizens. The following chart shows how the annual number of crimes against persons has increased in Boulder County from 2008 to 2020. The rate of increase is startling — it grew almost three-fold from around 1000 in 2008 to around 3000 in 2018. There was a significant drop in 2017, but that is an outlier as the overall trend is going up year over year. This is definitely not a good statistic for Boulder County and should be addressed by the administration, since people looking to move into Boulder County will be discouraged by looking at this graph.
The next question was to take a step back and look at data across all counties in Colorado to identify any correlation between net migration and crimes against persons. The Colorado State Demography Office defines net migration as the difference between the number of people moving into an area and the number of people moving out of an area. The goal was to see if the net migration rate of a given county in a given year (between 2008 and 2020) has any correlation with the number of crimes against persons committed in that county in that year. The scatterplot below shows a positive correlation between the two, meaning they both go in the same direction. The correlation coefficient for these two variables is 0.68, which represents a strong correlation. But, it is important to point out that correlation does not imply causation. In other words, we cannot conclude that net migration causes an increase in crime. Perhaps there is an indirect relationship between the two variables, meaning net migration causes something else that causes an increase in crime. Further research and analysis would be needed to study this topic.
The next question is to assess the crimes against property across all counties in Colorado. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation includes crimes such as arson, burglary, vandalism, shoplifting, car theft, and identity theft in this category. To be able to compare numbers across counties with widely different population numbers, it is better to use a “per thousand residents” number. The histogram below shows the distribution of how many crimes against property (per thousand residents) took place across all Colorado counties in any given year between 2008 and 2020. It is not a perfectly normal distribution and has two peaks close to each other. Most of the counties have between 0 and 50 crimes against property (per thousand residents) in a year and a handful of counties have a higher number.
The next question is to find out how the data for Boulder County for crimes against property per thousand residents compares to the other counties in the state of Colorado, specifically in relation to the histogram above. The chart below clearly shows that this category of crime has been increasing steadily over the years. For example, it was around 18 in 2008 and jumped to more than 40 in 2018. This is an especially significant increase, since it is a “per thousand” number and not the raw total count of such crimes. Since the population of Boulder County has grown over these years, it implies that the crimes against property have grown significantly. Another observation is that the Boulder County numbers per thousand residents are higher than many other counties in Colorado, as shown in the histogram above. This is not a flattering metric for Boulder County, since people looking to move here most likely value the safety of both persons and property.
The analysis of crime is not complete without looking into the broader context and how it is related to other factors of life. This article from the Boulder Reporting Lab points out that the increase in crime is correlated with an increase in drug usage. It claims that Boulder is safer than comparable university towns across the nation and that the increase in crime is a national trend that is not unique to Boulder. It points out a sharp increase in aggravated assaults between 2017 and 2021, including the use of a gun or a similar weapon. An interesting statistic highlighted in the article is that the theft of car parts, such as catalytic converters (classified as a crime against property), has nearly tripled in one year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, all crimes have increased since the start of the pandemic. In my opinion, one of the reasons for this trend is the domino effect of the pandemic on the mental and financial well-being of a large number of people across the Boulder area and beyond.
I think that a discussion of crime is not complete without a discussion about the issue of homelessness. What about the issue of homelessness in Boulder City and County and is it correlated to the crime statistics? The Boulder Beat created a series breaking down this issue by exploring all the facets in depth. Simply put, homelessness increases in counties where housing costs exceed income levels. This issue manifests itself in people who cannot work full-time due to age, health, or any number of reasons. The full-time minimum wage in the United States is not enough to afford even a one-bedroom apartment in most counties. Illegal drug use is a crime and plays an important role in homelessness, since drug addicts are unable to maintain employment. Also important is the issue of physical and mental health and the fact that the cost of healthcare is so high in the United States. The issues of health, employment status, housing costs, and drug use are all related to crime and homelessness, though there is no clear data showing what is the cause and what is the effect. Homeless people are more likely to be victims of crime compared to those who have a roof over their heads.
Based on my analysis of crime and demographic information, and research by others referenced in this post, I conclude that, unfortunately, Boulder County is not a particularly safe place and that crimes against persons and property have been steadily increasing. There are some correlations between crime, illegal drug use, and homelessness, although we need to be careful not to confuse correlation with causation. There are many possible explanations for why crime has increased and further research is needed to completely understand this complex topic. We should collectively call upon the Boulder City and County administration to take more effective actions that will result in reversing the trend of crime in the area, so that people considering moving here will feel safe and confident in their decision.
