High Crime in the Mile High City? Exploring the Association Between Marijuana Gentrification and Crime in Denver, Colorado

• In Event: New Directions in Research on the Relationship of Gentrification with Crime

Abstract

Recent research suggested the placement of marijuana dispensaries may be separately associated with both gentrification and crime in urban neighborhoods, but the specific role of dispensary placement in moderating the relationship between gentrification and crime has been overlooked by extant work. There are theoretical reasons within both social disorganization and routine activities frameworks to suspect that the presence of marijuana dispensaries may have an effect- either positive or negative- on neighborhood crime. To help elucidate the role of marijuana dispensaries in shaping the relationship between gentrification and crime, this study combines tract-level census data for Denver, Colorado from the 2010–2014 and 2015–2019 American Community Survey (ACS) Five-Year Surveys with dispensary location data obtained from the Colorado Department of Revenue and incident-level data for 2019 from the Denver Police Department. This study analyzes differences in crime incident counts for a variety of offense types between tracts that were identified as having gentrified between the 2010-2014 and 2015-2019 time periods and those that were not, and how the presence of dispensaries in tracts impacts this relationship. The results along with implications for researchers, policymakers, and law enforcement are discussed.

Author

• Nick T. Van De Voorde, Adams State University