Despite a sputtering national economy, the latest crime statistics released Monday show Colorado property crimes and burglaries — which usually skyrocket during an economic slowdown — declined in 2007.
Local police departments are giving high priority to solving property crimes and using new technology, including DNA information, to apprehend serial burglars, said Lance Clem, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Public Safety.
While DNA primarily has been used to help solve sexual assaults and homicides, departments now are flooding the three Colorado Bureau of Investigation labs with evidence from burglaries and other property crimes.
Of the cities reporting, only Pueblo reported an increase both in property crimes and burglaries from 2006 to 2007, according to the Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report, released by the FBI.
Reports of violent crime also declined in most cities. Only Arvada, Pueblo and Thornton reported increases. Murders in Colorado Springs increased to 27 in 2007, from 15 the year before.
Crimes such as rape, motor-vehicle theft and arson declined in most Colorado cities.
Nationally, violent crimes and property crimes also declined, reversing an upward trend over the past two years.
Clem said that much of the philosophy now employed in Colorado comes from the work of George Kelling, a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University. Kelling developed what is known as the “broken window approach.”
The strategy is built around the theory that neighborhood disintegration can begin with one broken window. If that window is not fixed, soon all the windows in the area will be broken, Kelling and many law enforcement officials think.
As a result, more severe crimes will occur, ultimately leading to the decline of the neighborhood.
Focusing on small crimes lets criminals as well as the community know that police care about what is happening, Clem said. And it acts as a deterrent, he added.
“Hard work” of police
Aurora police Chief Daniel Oates attributes the downturn in Aurora to “the smart, hard work of my cops” and a monthly meeting at which he and his officers focus on the trends and patterns of the previous four weeks and “career criminals, active warrants and known burglars.”
Joseph Sandoval, a professor of criminal justice and criminology at Metropolitan State College of Denver, says the downturn in property crimes might be an anomaly. It doesn’t fit the cycle usually seen when the economy turns bad, he said.
“We need to see if this is long-term or a dip in the road before the hill,” he said.
He said if the downturn in property crimes continues, it could be a combination of serial burglars being in prison, public education that has resulted in the “hardening of targets” such as homes, businesses and cars, and the possibility that the younger criminals who committed crimes have matured and given up property crimes.
“All those things may have come to fruition,” Sandoval said.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
