Violent crime up 25 percent in Colorado since 2013

All forms of violent crime in Colorado steadily increased over the past five years, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s latest annual report on statewide crime statistics.

In 2017, 23,098 violent crimes were reported, a 25 percent increase from 2013, according to the report released Thursday. There were 220 murders and 12,711 aggravated assaults.

Property crimes also rose statewide during the fiveyear period, the report said.

This year, the CBI changed how it reports crime throughout the state, and the change comes with a new name and format for the online report.

The new reporting system is called Colorado Crime Stats. It is based off the National IncidentBased Reporting System, also known as NIBRS within the criminal justice system. It provides more detailed breakdowns of crime data.

For example, if one incident involved multiple crimes, all of the crimes now will be counted individually rather than just the main charge. So if a rape victim also was kidnapped, then the rape and the kidnapping would be counted in separate crime categories.

CBI officials stress that while the new way of tracking statistics generally results in higher crime counts, that doesn’t necessarily indicate there’s more crime — only greater detail about the crimes that were committed.

For consistency, the CBI adjusted its data between 2013 and 2016 to reflect the NIBRS statistics, said Susan Medina, a CBI spokeswoman. The new system also allows users to create tables and download information into their own spreadsheets to study the data, she said.

The state’s police and sheriff’s offices will be allowed to enter the system and update data throughout the year, Medina said.

The FBI is scheduled to switch to the same reporting system in the coming years. And most police departments in Colorado have been using the NIBRS crime reporting system for several years.