Homicide clearance rates improved somewhat in 2023, rising above the all-time low rate recorded the year before.
The FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services division estimated that 57.8 percent of homicides in 2023 were either cleared through the arrest of offenders or through special circumstances such as the death of offenders during the process of arrest.
This was a welcomed improvement over the 52.3 percent clearance rate in 2022, the lowest national clearance rate ever reported by the FBI. To see the Murder Accountability Project's interactive chart of the history of declining clearance rates, click on the chart below or click here.
The improvement in homicide clearances occurred during a simultaneous decline in the total number of murders, allowing over-burdened homicide units to make headway in the nation's large backlog of unsolved killings. Homicides have declined by at least 2,000 murders in 2023 when compared to the previous year.
This drop followed the nearly 30-percent spike in killings that began the week that George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, prompting thousands of anti-police protests. That spike in fatal violence lasted three years but, finally, subsided last year.
The exact size of the 2023 homicide decline varies according to the source. The FBI, in its annual Crime in the United States publication, estimates that there were 19,252 murders in 2023, down from 21,781 killings estimated in 2022. This is a decline of more than 2,500 killings. The totals in MAP's Clearance Rates tab are based upon data actually reported by police to the FBI or obtained by MAP through Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also count homicides and found that murders dropped from 24,849 in 2022 to a provisional estimate of 22,830 last year. The CDC counts are greater than FBI counts because homicide reports to medical authorities are mandated by law while participation in the FBI's crime reporting program is voluntary. The CDC's data suggest homicides declined by about 2,000 murders.
