DENVER — Governor Jared Polis set "wildly important goals" (WIGs) for his time in office and now has less than half a year left to meet them.
For violent crime, he wants to see a 6% drop year over year and wants Colorado to make the list of top 10 safest states.
"It's a big state, and you're always going to see some communities where it goes one way, other communities where it becomes safer. But overall, I'm very proud that violent crime has gone down just in the last two years, 13.9%," Polis said.
Denver7 reached out to police departments across the state to see if they agree.
Centennial police told us, data shows city numbers are unchanged. Broomfield police's crime dashboard shows a similar amount of violent crime between 2023 and 2024. Boulder and Denver police both report violent crime is down.
Denver shared a breakdown in their trends:
- Reported violent gun crime is down 21% in Denver YTD compared with 2024 YTD
- Homicides are down 44% in Denver (27 homicide victims YTD compared with 44 YTD in 2024)
- Non-fatal shootings are down 8% in Denver in Denver YTD compared with 2024 YTD
- Total violent crime is down 4% in Denver YTD compared with 2024 YTD
A spokesperson for the Denver Police Department said total violent crime is down 7.31% right now, compared to the combined average at this same time for 2022-2024.
DPD attributes those decreases to many things within the department like investing in hot spot areas, sharing personal safety tips with people arriving on scene quickly to look for suspects and gather evidence.
Governor Polis also had a take.
"It's beefing up our Colorado Bureau of Investigations, our ability to provide statewide support. It's youth intervention programs to prevent kids from turning to crime in the first place. It's reducing recidivism through programs in prisons and jails," Polis said.
As for the governor's goal of making Colorado one of the 10 safest states, he said, "We're not there. We have a long way to go."
"To do that, there's some new funds from the state that will be starting for local law enforcement as soon as January. We also work closely with our federal partners at the FBI and other agencies on serious crime investigations."
In terms of funding, voters passed a proposition in November 2024 to allocate more funding to law enforcement agencies to recruit, train and retain officers.
