« Chicago Murder Statistics (2007) | Main | Importance of Frame Rates »

January 29, 2008

Cameras Are of Limited Help in Solving Murders

[From Chicago crime down 3.8 percent, annual statistics show -- chicagotribune.com]

The Tribune article posts an interesting statistic which is relevant for those of us following cameras. Cameras are typically justified in deterring crime and serving as an investigative tool. From what I can gather, cameras aren't solving a large number of murders:

Reluctant witnesses, and an increase in hard-to-solve gang homicides, have contributed to the city's decline in solving murders in recent years. Clearance rates in Chicago fell from the 70 percent range in the early 1990s to the 40 percent range in the first half of this decade. In 2007, about 36 percent of murders were solved, about the same as 2006.

As murder totals have fallen across the country, so too have clearance rates. When using the FBI's method—of counting any murders solved in a year, whether the homicide occurred that year or in previous years—Chicago's clearance rate rises to 59 percent, comparable to the national rate of about 60 percent. But that same national rate was 69 percent in 2000 and even higher in decades past.

So despite all the cameras, DNA analysis, and other fancy CSI gizmo's, its actually harder to solve a murder now than it was 10 years ago. There is an explanation for this, but it doesn't really support using cameras as an investigative tool:

James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, said it's a nationwide problem. "It's not the ability to solve crimes that has changed," Fox said. "Homicides have shifted away from the easy ones to solve to the more difficult ones to solve. Over the years, perpetrators have gotten younger, homicides are much more likely to involve strangers, much more likely to involve gangs, and there's a code of silence."

Posted by rshah at January 29, 2008 10:37 AM

Comments

Post a comment