Here's the reason for America's good news about murder

Homicide clearances last year enjoyed the largest single-year improvement on record. The rate at which police in the United States arrested murder suspects rose from 61.4 percent in 2024 to 68.8 percent in 2025, according to estimates by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services division. 

Unsolved murders generally became more and more common over the last 60 years. But that grim trend reversed starting in 2023 and last year experienced the best clearance rate in a quarter century. 

America experienced these dramatic improvements just three years after suffering the worst increase in murder ever recorded in 2020. The nearly 30 percent jump in murder began the week George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, sparking thousands of anti-police demonstrations nationwide. Not surprisingly, homicide clearances hit an all-time low at 52.3 percent in 2022.

"We believe all of these events are closely inter-related," said Murder Accountability Project Chairman Thomas K. Hargrove. "Whether we succeed or fail to solve murders, primarily, comes down to resources, especially how many trained investigators and forensic technicians we deploy."

The historic spike in murders in 2020 overwhelmed local homicide departments. Mayors and city councils hustled to increase staffing to handle the unprecedented increase in killing. Much of this improved staffing remained on duty even as the murder rate began to decline in 2023, 2024 and 2025. (To see an interactive chart about clearance rates, click on the chart above or click here.)

"We'll all know when police departments start cutting homicide staffs. Their clearance rates will start dropping again," Hargrove said. "Or maybe -- just maybe -- we will learn a lesson and adequately staff America's response to murder."