JANUARY | 2025

The availability of quality child care is critical to family stability, the economy, and the educational success of our youth. Unfortunately, the demand for child care exceeds the supply, which elevates the importance of expanding capacity, access, and availability, and eliminating unnecessary barriers to increasing child care supply. This report examines the barriers facing employers and organizations that want to open and operate child care facilities and proposes policy recommendations to help overcome those barriers.

JANUARY | 2025

Policymakers have long explored how best to achieve the related objectives of avoiding unnecessary youth involvement in the criminal justice system, ensuring public safety, and reducing recidivism.  This effort has included a focus on the necessary and appropriate number of youth detention beds to detain youth offenders while they are awaiting trial or transfer to another facility.

DECEMBER | 2024

Shoplifting has been identified as a serious concern by the Colorado retail industry and local jurisdictions throughout the state. Retailers along Colfax Avenue and the Uptown neighborhood of Denver, for example, have cited shoplifting as a growing problem for their businesses and, in some cases, even the reason for closing a location.

AUGUST | 2024

Policymakers and the general public have recognized the longstanding importance of reducing violent crime across Colorado’s communities. Evidence-based research combined with a clearer understanding of what crime reduction strategies Colorado has taken at the state level and local jurisdictions can strengthen collective efforts to improve public safety.

JUNE | 2024

Aggregate Impacts from House Bill 24-1134, House Bill 1311, and Senate Bill 24-228

This report analyzes three bills affecting Colorado state tax rebates and credits, estimating their impacts on households across the income quartiles and on poverty rates in Colorado. This analysis adds to existing analyses of each bill individually by providing an analysis of the combined impact of these bills that accounts for offsetting distributional impacts.