The “clearance rate” in law enforcement lingo is the percentage of reported crimes that are solved by the police. The percentage is shockingly and shamefully low, almost everywhere, for all types of crime. And this is nothing new. I wrote a column for the Houston Chronicle in 2008 about how low the clearance rates were. Unfortunately, there has been little to no improvement since. Indeed, as I will discuss below, the clearance rates for some crimes are getting worse.

Over several posts, I will examine the clearance rates at various agencies; however, I thought it would be good to start with some statewide statistics for Texas. Here are the clearance rates for some of the major crimes in 2024.

Keep in mind that these are the clearance rates for reported crimes. The Justice Department’s annual crime survey has consistently shown that only about half of all violent crimes are even reported to police. Therefore, the percentage of criminals who are ever held accountable for their crimes is even lower than these numbers suggest.

The one that has always infuriated me is the abysmal clearance rate for rape.  Reporting a rape is difficult and traumatic for the victim. For a victim to find the courage to come forward and then have less than a one in four chance of their perpetrator facing justice is a travesty.

The Texas Department of Public Safety publishes a wealth of data on crime statistics. One of the reports available for download is a statewide clearance rate for fifty-two crimes, which displays the five-year trend for each. For twenty crimes, the clearance rate in 2024 was lower than in 2020. Here are some examples:

According to the statewide summary, about 114,000 crimes were solved in Texas during 2024.¹ The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Texans spent $21 billion on law enforcement in 2020. Of course, it would be considerably more by now. According to Texapedia, Texas has over 81,000 law enforcement officers. That means that we spend nearly $200,000 for every case solved, and the average number of crimes solved per officer is about 1.4.

Sure seems like to me we should be able to do better.

More to come.