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10 18 24 Common Sense Institute's DJ Summers talks about the FBI updating crime data
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Stay on top of what's happening by signing up at washingtonpost.com/pod. That's washingtonpost.com/p-o-d. Recently, FBI crime data showed decreasing rates across the nation was revised, showing instead that violent crime in 2023 was actually increasing. What do these revisions mean for Colorado? Has it changed? What are crime data? It is as well. This now, director of policy and research for the Common Sense Institute, it's DJ Summers. DJ, welcome back. We'll just jump right into it. These revisions nationally have they filtered down and changed the data we have here in Colorado. The good news is that these have not changed Colorado's crime rate. The bad news is that Colorado's crime rates still are not looking terrific. DJ, when we're looking at these specific ones, it looks like violent crime, property crime, and auto theft out of those, which one really stands out the most to you as one of these eye-opening statistics that we're seeing for our state? Genuinely violent crime is the most concerning of the youth simply because there's so much human loss and human suffering behind that violent crime, and our violent crime rate has improved slightly in 2023, went down slightly in 2023. However, we still rank the eighth highest violent crime rate in the nation. That being said, our violent crime rate through 2021, 2022, and 2023 is about the same as it was in 1994 and 1995. You think back to those deadly crack war days, those days when guns were going off the hook, and it's not quite to the peak of the early 90s, but it's about the same as it was in 1994-1995. DJ is going to ask a question regarding is there more crime because we have more population if that correlates, but when you go back to those dates, obviously we didn't have the population we have now, but is that part of the calculus, or are we seeing more just because we have more people from which to pull data? Well, I did this analysis based on the rates, and that is stabilized for population. We've had a big growth in population since 1990s, but our crime has gone up commensurately with those. We're seeing more rates per person. Those rates are stabilized, this is not just a feature of gaining more people. Let's pivot to Autotefs, something that has been a big issue for Denver Mayor Mike Johnston as he's been trying to address this, but our state's still high on the list when it comes to the top Autotef states. Any idea of why we're still seeing it, though it's been something that's been trying to be addressed for over a year now? It takes a while to really get a grip on crime. You can see that in the FBI stats, nationally you can see that in different states. It takes a couple of years for a peak period of a certain kind of crime to start rolling down, and we are seeing those rates improve, and the good news is we're not the worst anymore. We used to have the highest rate in the nation of Autotef in 2020. We rank number four instead. Dejan, I don't know if you can answer this, but my listeners ask, when the FBI or whomever does this research puts out the data, then they have to revise it. Why is there the revision? Why is not the original data set as it is? This is kind of a complex system that we're talking about with crime reporting for the FBI, and some of the raw data that they had released earlier in the year didn't incorporate some of the police agencies who had yet to get their numbers in. This data incorporates new police reporting. However, Colorado's data doesn't really change much from year to year, because we already have a very high participation rate from those law enforcement agencies. It got their numbers in earlier in the year, and it didn't affect our standings much. Let's also look at Colorado when it comes to property crime. What is considered property crime to begin with is the Autotef number also included in the statistic. Autotef is included in property crime as well as burglary, larceny, some other smaller grade items, and that has changed as well. From 2022 to 2023, the rate of property crime has gone down. That did spike in the early 2020s, simply because we had so many Autotefs. We now have the fourth highest property crime rate in the nation. DJ, I know I've asked you a similar question about this before when you bring data on. You're just sharing the data that you have, but in your research and due diligence, maybe find the causes. Why we're seeing this, whether it be policy or just other things going on as to why we see crime at where it's at. Do you have any information on that? Unfortunately, I can't make any speculation about why crime rates have gotten worse, why violent crime rates have gotten worse, why property crime rates have gotten worse, why motor vehicle theft rates have gotten worse. We do know that some measures seem to have some kind of an impact. The General Assembly did increase Autotef rate penalties, and that has coincided at least with a decrease in the Autotef rate. Similarly, the city of Aurora made some of the same moves, and their Autotef rate went down in 2023. Find more at commonsenseinstituteco.org, director of policy and research for the commonsense Institute. It's DJ Summers. But there's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank. You deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. 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