>
Murder resolution rates have fallen from their lowest level of 71 percent in 1980 to around 50 percent in 2020, according to analyzes of FBI data by the Marshall Project and the Murder Accountability Project.
The United States now risks becoming the first developed nation where most murders go unsolved. according to Thomas Hargrovefounder of the Murder Accountability Project, which tracks unsolved homicides in the US.
Although US police have solved more murders than in any other year since 1997, due to the rising number of homicides, the resolution rate has dropped dramatically to just under 50 percent.
Solve rates are the metric used to determine how many homicides police have solved according to FBI reports.
This comes after a substantial increase in homicides in some of America’s largest cities, including Kansas City, when it saw 15 murders per 100,000 people in 2022.
The United States risks becoming the first developed nation where the majority of murders go unsolved, as national homicide clearance rates are at their lowest level in four decades.
Investigators found that the top five homicide hotspots were Detroit, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Denver, Colorado, was the best performing city of the 50 large cities in the study.
To clear a case, it is required that at least one suspect be arrested, charged with the crime, and turned over to a court for prosecution.
However, according to the FBI, homicides can also be cleared up by “exceptional means,” that is, when police believe they have sufficient evidence but were unable to make an arrest.
Some examples include the death of a suspect, another jurisdiction’s refusal to extradite someone, or the police identification of a suspect.
From 2019 to 2020, US police solved an additional 1,200 murders, an increase of 14%.
However, compared to previous decades, murders have now risen twice as fast and are at 30 percent, leading to a drop in solved crimes as only one in two murders is solved.
Nationwide, murder and manslaughter were solved at the highest rates, at 50% and 69% respectively, while other crimes, such as rape, robbery, and assault, were solved at much higher rates. low.
Local law enforcement agencies reported just 14,715 homicides, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has so far counted 25,988 murders, according to data compiled by the Murder Accountability Project.
Compared to previous decades, murders have now risen twice as fast and are at 30 percent, leading to a drop in solved crimes as only one in two murders is solved (file image)
This is because the FBI mandated that all crimes committed in 2021 and thereafter be reported through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) instead of the Summary Reporting System.
Philip Cook, a public policy researcher at the University of Chicago Urban Laboratories, who has been studying removal rates since the 1970s, suggests that a decline in removal rates might not be a bad thing.
told the project marshall: ‘It could also be that the standards for making an arrest have gone up and some of the tricks they used in 1965 are no longer available.’
Furthermore, the change in resolution rates over the years can be attributed to the fact that the nature of the crimes that the police are asked to solve has changed over the years.
Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that murders are now less frequently committed by people the victim knew, with increasing proportions of homicides committed by strangers.
Alternatively, often in minority communities where trust in the law is less, officers struggle to get witnesses to speak to them, says Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Melina Abdullah, co-director of the national community organizing group Black Lives Matter Grassroots, said one of the reasons for getting involved with law enforcement is fear of violent retaliation.
Abdullah suggested that the police are often guilty of incorrectly criminalizing victims and treating them as suspects, specifically in black communities.
CBS also noted a growing discrepancy in homicide resolution rates based on the race and ethnicity of the victim, with African-American victims experiencing the lowest resolution rate.
Additionally, the Murder Accountability Project reported that 100 percent of the U.S. decline in homicide resolution was borne by black victims, as resolution rates for white, Asian American, and American Indian victims remained flat or even They got better over time.
As a result of this cycle, the police are seen as ineffective at their job when essential leads are not provided.
“Declining homicide clearance rates are the result of an inadequate allocation of resources: detectives, forensic technicians, crime lab capacity, and adequate staff training,” Hargrove said.
However, while a case may be cleared, this does not always result in jail time.
A 2009 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that nearly a third of people charged with murder were acquitted or had the charges dismissed in the nation’s 70 largest counties.