In Houston, a scandal recently broke when it became public that the police department had closed the investigation of over a quarter of a million crimes with a code indicating the case was being dropped for lack of manpower. The cases closed included thousands of murders and sexual assaults. The department did not inform victims or their families that the investigations had been closed. While the disclosure has roiled Houstonians, it should be of no surprise to anyone that law enforcement agencies generally do an abysmal job at solving crimes.
The metric used to measure how effectively law enforcement is solving crimes is a statistic known as the clearance rate. The clearance rate is a fraction, of which the denominator is the number of a particular crime committed over a given period of time, say a calendar year, and the numerator is the number of cases “cleared.”
A case is typically cleared by the arrest of the person whom law enforcement believes has committed the crime. There are a few other ways a case can be cleared. For example, the law enforcement agency can determine that the report was false and no crime was actually committed.
There has been some criticism of the use of the clearance rate as a metric, primarily because there are some timing issues that can affect the rate. However, it is the best metric we currently have to judge how well a law enforcement agency is “solving” the crimes reported to it.
The FBI publishes the clearance rates for various crimes as part of its annual report on crime. The FBI’s latest report is from 2019. Here is what it reports as the national average for clearing various categories of crimes.
I suspect that if you are seeing these numbers for the first time, you are shocked at just how low the rates are. I find it particularly infuriating that we only solve a third of rapes. Knowing how difficult it is for a rape victim to come forward in the first place, it is a travesty that we do such a poor job of delivering justice for the crime committed against them. And to make matters worse, most law enforcement agencies saw their clearance rates decline since 2019, with the spike in crime that occurred across the country.
Law enforcement predictably responds to criticism of their embarrassingly low clearance rates by complaining that it needs more resources and personnel. There is undoubtedly some validity to their complaint, but Americans are already spending vast sums on law enforcement. Estimates vary, but the consensus is something in the $200-300 billion range annually. That is nearly $400-600 per person. And funding has continued to grow with little or no improvement in clearance rates.
So, while raising the clearance rate may require more resources, it is going to take more than just throwing more money at law enforcement or just adding more “boots on the ground.” We will have to be much smarter about how we approach solving crimes.
First, we must devote more resources to forensics. While there have been some high-profile scandals about DNA tests being abused, the reality is that we have more forensic tools to solve crimes today than at any time in history. There have been many media accounts about backlogs at crime labs across the county. In Houston, our backlog for rape kits is 173 days, and the backlog for firearm examination is a jaw-dropping 307 days.
Second, we should consider prioritizing investigation over patrol. Seeing a patrol car rolling through your neighborhood may make you feel safer, but taking dangerous criminals off the street will actually make you safer. This is especially true when you consider that criminals rarely commit just one crime. Of course, this strategy only works if prosecutors and judges actually keep habitual criminals off the street once they are caught.
Also, when I look through police department budgets, it always appears that many officers are assigned to duties that are not really law enforcement functions. It is not unusual to see that up to a third of its force is assigned support functions – administrative, airport security, mounted patrol, and other miscellaneous areas. I think every department should take a hard look at what support and administrative services could be outsourced or handled by civilian employees to increase the number of investigators. And there are some areas that should probably be shut down completely. I am not sure a large city still needs a mounted patrol.
Another idea I heard from one retired officer is to bring retired detectives back to work on cases on a contractual basis. I am sure a detailed review of the department’s operations would discover other ways to increase our investigative efforts. A better use of technology is likely one of those ways.
Police departments are para-military organizations, and like the military, they are frequently slow to adapt and generally are resistant to change. We need to think outside the current paradigm of law enforcement. For example, one thing that should be on the table is a complete overhaul of how we deal with substance abuse. The “war on drugs” has been a complete failure, and more police corruption comes from narcotics enforcement than any other area.
But the bottom line is that if we want to solve more crimes, it must be made a priority. The clearance statistics should be reported to the public on a monthly basis. When I was running companies, one of my mantras was, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.” We need to start paying attention to the clearance rates. The media needs to start paying attention to the clearance rates. When was the last time you heard a story about how awful the clearance rates are? I suspect never. But most of all, mayors, city councils, county supervisors, and all of those to whom law enforcement ultimately reports, need to start paying attention to clearance rates and demanding answers as to why the rates are so low.
Until we as communities and as a country demand better performance from all of our law enforcement agencies at solving crimes, the vast majority of victims will continue to be denied justice for the crime committed against them. That should be on all of our consciences.
Bill King is a businessman and lawyer, and is a former opinion columnist and editorial board member at the Houston Chronicle. He has served in a number of appointed and elected positions, including mayor of his hometown. He writes on a wide range of public policy and political issues. Bill is the author of “Unapologetically Moderate.”
