With yet another month's worth of crime data coming in from Denver, crime is continuing to skyrocket in the post-marijuana legalization period. For the month of March, total UCR crime was up 3.7% compared to March 2015. Much of this increase was driven by violent crime, which increased 4.5%, while property crimes were up 3.6%. During the first three months of 2016, UCR crimes have increased 9.6%, of which property crimes are up 9.9% and violent crimes up 7.6%. Under the NIBRS definitions, total crimes increased 6.1% for the January to March period of 2016 compared to a year earlier. The large increase in property crime (11.3%) was behind much of this rise, although a substantial increase (3.0%) in violent crime was also observed. The annual rate of population growth for the region is about 2%, meaning that the number of crimes so far in 2016 are rising upwards of five-fold faster than population growth. Despite this degradation of civil society, the state is...(Read Full Post)