Crime In Our Backyard
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. But it is not perfect, especially around safety and crime. We generally feel safe around here, but when we hear about some violent event happening in the state, it is natural to wonder whether we live in a safe place. Zooming in further, is it safe to live in Boulder, where we have the beautiful University of Colorado campus? How does Boulder County compare to the rest of Colorado in terms of crime statistics?
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. Since the latest year common to both the datasets is 2020, my analysis focused on that year. My hypothesis before doing the analysis was that Boulder County was at around the 50th percentile compared to the other counties in Colorado.
In case you are wondering how Colorado compares with the rest of the country, this graphic shows that reported violent crime rate here is 21st in the nation. So, it is fair to say that Colorado is in the middle of the pack, just about average in terms of crime compared to the other states. Now, let us zoom in on Colorado. The state has 64 counties and, in 2020 the most populous counties were El Paso, Denver, and Arapahoe. El Paso had a population of 731,641; it is a county that is home to the city of Colorado Springs. Boulder County came in 9th with a population of 330,860 in 2020. Using crimes against persons as a criterion, the worst counties were Adams, Jackson, and Denver. Crimes against property were worst in Adams, Gilpin, and Denver counties. Gilpin and Moffat appear in the list of the top 3 worst counties for drug equipment and narcotic violations. Curiously enough, Gilpin County is one of the tiniest counties in the state. In 2020, it had a population of just 5,799, but reported 70.8 crimes against property per thousand residents. It consists of the mountain towns of Black Hawk and Central City, which are known for gambling casinos. There could be some connection between gambling and higher crime, but it would need to be researched further.
Now, let us zoom into Boulder County, specifically how does crime in Boulder County compare to the other counties in Colorado? Looking at crimes against persons per thousand residents in the year 2020, Boulder County is ranked 23rd out of 64 counties. For crimes against property, it is in 10th place. For drug equipment violations, it is ranked 24th and for narcotic violations, it is in 29th place. Overall, we can say that Boulder is in the top half of all state counties in terms of crime, but is in the top 15% for property crimes. Next, it is also interesting to measure quantitatively what the ratio of crime is in Boulder County versus the worst county for each category. The crimes against persons per thousand residents in Boulder County is 0.36 times that of Adams County, which is the worst. For crimes against property, that ratio is 0.48, for drug equipment violations, it is 0.15, and for narcotic violations, it is 0.27. We can infer from this data that the biggest crime issue in Boulder County is crimes against property, followed by crimes against persons, narcotic violations, and finally drug equipment violations.
So, does this data make you feel more safe or less safe in Boulder County? Are there any other reports out there that talk about this issue? Based on the analysis, I conclude that, relative to my initial hypothesis, Boulder County is a bit worse for crime compared to other Colorado counties. More analysis needs to be done in terms of the historical trends in crime for the county, in order to reach an even more informed conclusion. Here is an excellent recent article about Boulder crime which claims that crime is definitely increasing here, but it is still lower than comparable cities.
