Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

If you would like to be involved please go to our website and become a member.


Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Denver Crime Rate Falls 12% In '08

Crime in Denver continues to decrease this year, with reductions in almost every category of the most serious offenses, according to city officials.

Overall, crime in the city is down 12.4 percent in the first six months of 2008.

Violent crimes fell 6.6 percent, and property crimes 19.9 percent.

The exception is robbery, which ticked up 2.3 percent.

The most dramatic increase was in bank robberies.

Denver recorded 10 bank robberies in the first half of 2007, compared with 34 this year.

If the numbers hold out, this would be Denver's third consecutive year of double-digit decreases in crime.

"I keep questioning the statistics. 'Are you sure about this?' " said police Chief Gerald Whitman. "It's too good to be true."

Whitman cited police staffing, problem-solving projects and a better flow of information as reasons why crime is continuing to decline.

The department also has targeted serial burglars through DNA analysis and cracked down on repeat offenders.


Rocky Mountain News

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't give Whitman any credit, he doesnt answer his E-mails.djw

Anonymous said...

Everyone will take credit for this!
DOC will say it is because they are keeping all the criminals. Police will say that they target neighborhoods.
Prosecutors will say they put the bad guys away.
Judges will say that they convict more people.
Obama will say he has solved the poor problem.
McCain will say he won the war on drugs.
Ritter will say it is because he is building a new prison and gets money from private contract prisons...
and it goes on and on.
Crime goes on and either people are getting sick of reporting it with no results (45 minutes to respond to a fight in progress in the park?) or the statistics are manipulated so that politicians can get re-elected. mpc