Clearance Rates

Introduction

Homicide rates around the country show that many individuals choose murder as the ultimate means of conflict resolution. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, 65 percent of homicides are cleared. Unfortunately, consistently high homicide clearance rates are not the norm for departments around the country. To help departments raise their clearance rates, it is important to discover which aspects of homicide case management and investigation produce the best results. First it may be useful to review definitions of “clearance rate.” Bottomley and Pease state, “[A]n offense is said to be cleared up if a person has been charged, summonsed or cautioned for the offense, if the offense is admitted and taken into consideration by the court, or if there is sufficient evidence to charge a person, but the case is not proceeded with...” (1986:44). However, Rinehart (1993) points out that Greenwood, Chaiken, and Petersilia (1977:32) define a cleared case to exist “when police have identified a perpetrator, have sufficient...