Murders in 2025 Were Likely Solved at the Highest Rate This Century
One of the cool new features on our newly released Crime Index is the ability to visualize changing clearance rates (along with crime) as they change. With a few button clicks you can see the US murder clearance rate trend for the last few years. As you can see, murder clearances were right around 60 percent pre-COVID, fell to around 50 percent in 2021 and 2022 before rebounding steadily through the end of 2025.
The data source for this graph is important, because it’s coming from the FBI’s monthly crime counts from the Crime Data Explorer. Nearly every agency that is going to submit 2025 data to the FBI has already done it, so while this is not exactly what the national clearance rate for 2025 will be when the FBI formally reports it in a few months, it’s a really good approximation.
The monthly clearance data on the CDE has not always been a great approximation of the national clearance rate. The CDE used to understate the national clearance rate as formally published by the FBI in the Crime in the US report by nearly 5 percentage points prior to the NIBRS transition in 2021. Since then, however, it has been off by right around half a percentage point each year — a nearly perfect approximation.
So, keeping in mind the fact that the CDE as a data source is likely slightly understating the US murder clearance rate in 2025, where would last year rank? The CDE has the 2025 murder clearance rate at 66.5 percent which is up massively from the 2021/2022 low of around 50 percent.
Right around 63 percent of murders were cleared in the US between 2000 and 2009 with the clearance rate this century peaking right at 66.5 percent in 2009. Going back to 1960 gives the full picture of steady drops over the last few decades, but it also shows just how far murder clearance rates have increased over the last few years.
If the CDE is slightly understating last year’s murder clearance rate, then you probably have to go all the way back to 1999 to find a higher rate (67.5 percent).
Measuring the relatively high clearance rates in the US (relative to the last 25 years, not relative to the optimal 100 percent clearance rate) in 2025 raises the natural question: why has it gone up?
The US clearance rates in the 1960s and 1970s were unbelievably high — and by that I mean that they probably shouldn’t be believed. Philip Cook wrote a great piece a few years ago where he analyzes the great drop in murder clearance rates. Per Cook, a major factor is the “upward trend in the standard for arrest”, meaning police are making better arrests that are more likely to lead to conviction nowadays compared to 50 or 60 years ago.
But why are they rising now? I would point to two factors that are major determinants in explaining why clearance rates are rising. First, the number of murders has fallen dramatically, and a smaller denominator (murders) with roughly even numerator (murders solved by police) leads to a naturally higher clearance rate. The relationship is fairly strong this century:
Another major contributing factor in my opinion is that the share of murders being committed with a firearm has fallen. According to data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR), around 72 percent of murders committed in 2025 involved a firearm. This is higher than the historic norm, but down a decent bit from more than 76 percent in 2021 and 2022.
Murders with a firearm tend to be harder to solve, so it is unsurprising that a smaller share of murders being committed with a firearm will mean a higher share of murders solved.
Still, these two factors probably don’t describe the entirety of the murder clearance rate surge. The increase in clearance rates from 2020 to 2024 (still waiting on 2025 data!) has largely come from big cities, which suggests broader changes in policing strategies or improvements in police-community relations as possible — though hardly proven — additional explanations.
Regardless of the cause, rising murder clearance rates is a good thing and it will be interesting to see whether they continue to rise as murder continues to fall in the first half of 2026.
I recently met with Col. Jack Herzog who is Chief of Criminal Investigations for the Baltimore Police Department about the huge increase in clearances for violent crimes. In Baltimore, the increase is even greater for aggravated assaults than for homicides. This is not just a numerator going down issue. BPD arrests for ag assaults doubled with the last few years.
Col. Herzog pointed to improved management issues, more investigative resources including using of civilians for some tasks previously done by detectivees, standardization, use of data from cameras, LPRs, ballistics, phones, AND using AI to better utilize all of those streams of data to more quickly identify suspects. Their improved data management system also allows supervisors to more easily track performance and correct issues in investigations.
I don't know if this matters or not, but in 2023, Baltimore's State's Attorney switched from Mosby to Bates with Bates being a more aggressive prosecutor than Mosby. I wonder if the threshold for arrest changed.
Finally, with a lower volume cases, detectives simply have more time to dedicate to each case. As with the explanation for our dramatic drop in homicides, I think the stark improvement in clearances is due to many contributing factors working together.
I believe there has been a modest increase in the share of homicides that are domestic violence homicides. Those crimes are are typically solved at a much higher rate (granting that the determination that it's a DV homicide somewhat rests on knowing who did it). Perhaps that composition effect explains some of the improvement.