DENVER — The Denver Police Department is diving deeper into the city's 78 neighborhoods to uncover top safety and crime concerns. The department is asking those who live or work in the city to take part in the Denver Public Safety Survey.
Travis Leiker has lived in Denver since 2008.
“I don’t feel as safe in this community since I moved to the Mile High City. I know some of my friends and my colleagues do not feel as safe living in the Mile High City,” said Leiker.
Perceptions like Leiker’s are what DPD wants to gather from each of the city’s neighborhoods.
Conducted independently through Seattle University’s Crime & Justice Research Center, it will assess residents' and workers' top safety concerns and their most prominent public safety themes.
“We learned about the survey that’s been going on for its ninth year in Seattle, and we felt that that was a great tool to introduce here in Denver,” said Doug Schepman, a spokesperson for DPD.
The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete and starts by asking questions about you, like your employment, income, etc.. And then uses a sliding scale from 0 to 100 to gauge your thoughts on questions like, “... to what extent do you agree with the following when thinking about Denver Police officers …”
The survey goes on to ask participants if they have been a victim of certain crimes and if they chose to report them, and asks them to identify how often certain behaviors are a problem where they live or work.
The survey, in 13 languages, even dives into personal behaviors, like if survey participants installed security alarms because of safety concerns in their neighborhood.
“There are a lot of people we don’t hear from, and sometimes that might be a language barrier or someone who has a distrust of police. This is an opportunity for someone like that to take an anonymous survey and provide us their feedback,” said Schepman.
While police point to a drop in violent crimes and property crimes compared to last year, over a five-year span violent crime is up 8% city-wide and auto theft is up 77%.
That trend is something Leiker said he’s noticed.
“The patience of the population in our city is going to grow pretty thin pretty quickly and I think that’s where we’re at,” said Leiker.
You can fill out the survey here: https://denverpublicsafetysurvey.org/the-denver-public-safety-survey-1
The survey is available through December 8.
