Clearance rate

In criminal justice, clearance rate is calculated by dividing the number of crimes that are "cleared", a criminal charge being laid, or convicted by the total number of crimes recorded.

A given police force may appear to have a much better clearance rate because of its calculation methodology.

[1] In system conflict theory, it is argued that clearance rates cause the police to focus on appearing to solve crimes (generating high clearance rate scores) rather than actually solving crimes.

[citation needed] Homicide clearance rate in the USA has been decreasing from 93% in 1962 to 54% in 2020.

[2] Some U.S. police forces have been criticized for overuse of "exceptional clearance", which is intended to classify as "cleared" cases where probable cause to arrest a suspect exists, but police are unable to do so for reasons outside their control (such as death or incarceration in a foreign country).