As murders and shootings skyrocket in Chicago, the city’s clearance rate remains abysmal — and the Police Department’s detective pool has also dwindled.
Chicago had 1,252 detectives in 2008, but it now has 922, according to a report from Reuters, leaving the violence-plagued city with proportionally fewer detectives than other major cities. A recently retired detective told Reuters investigators have been overwhelmed and can’t do “an honest investigation” of 75 percent of cases.
At the same time, the Police Department’s murder clearance rate — the rate at which it solves and closes cases — sat at just 46 percent in 2015, according to Reuters. The national average is 63 percent, and it’s 68 percent for cities with more than 1 million people, according to Reuters.
“You get so many cases you could not do an honest investigation on three-quarters of them,” the detective told Reuters. “The guys … are trying to investigate one homicide and they are sent out the next day on a brand new homicide or a double.”
Those numbers come as increased gun violence has led to a surge in murders in Chicago. At least 462 people have been killed so far this year. In comparison, in all of 2015 only about 493 people were killed.