A report on NPR’s “Morning Edition” this morning took a close look at crime clearance rates in the United States, paying particular attention to murder cases. Fifty years ago, the story notes, more than 90 percent of murder cases were “cleared,” meaning police arrested a suspect or the culprit was identified without the possibility of being arrested (say, because he or she died). But nowadays the clearance rate on murders is barely 64 percent.

Why the precipitous drop? The story cites higher standards for charging suspects as well as the worsening relationship between police and the public, though a criminologist suggests that police priorities may also play a role. 

But the most intriguing thing for our purposes here at the Outpost is that NPR made a special request for clearance data from virtually every city in the county and took the trouble to compile that data into an interactive tool. (Thanks, NPR!)

We plugged in our seven local cities; neither Trinidad nor Blue Lake have their own police departments, but Humboldt County’s other five cities had numbers for crunching.

Now, crime rates in the county have been on the rise in recent years, as the Outpost addressed last fall. Using figures from 2013 (the most recent data available), here’s how our local municipalities stack up against the national averages:

  • Violent Crime: Eureka, which has the highest number and the highest rate of violent crimes, also has the lowest clearance rate for those crimes at just 35 percent. That’s a full 13 percent below the national average. Murder clearance rates, specifically, vary a lot by year since there are so few (relatively speaking). In 2013, one of the city’s two murders went uncleared. (While 2014 data isn’t in the books yet, three of Eureka’s five homicides have been cleared, by the Outpost‘s unofficial count.) Elsewhere, Arcata beat the national average, clearing 57 percent of violent crimes, as did Fortuna (71 percent clearance rate), Rio Dell (91 percent) and Ferndale (where all four violent crimes on the year were cleared, for a perfect 100 percent.)
  • Property Crime: Lest those other cities start feeling smug, check this out: Eureka, with a 20 percent clearance rate on property crimes, was the only city of the five to (barely) exceed the U.S. average of 19.7 percent clearance for property crimes. Ferndale (19 percent) and Fortuna (18 percent) came close, followed by Arcata (13 percent) and Rio Dell (11 percent). That 19 percent for Ferndale was earned by clearing five of 26 property crimes in 2013, a significant improvement over 2012 when the local police department went an abysmal zero-for-17, solving not a single property crime.

We’ll be interested to see how the 2014 numbers come out, given the surge in homicides in particular. In the meantime, feel free to head on over to the webpage and plug some cities in for yourself. And you can listen to the full NPR story below.

Previously: