Ask the office of City State’s attorney Marilyn Mosby how many murders have resulted in arrests this year, and, as of July 19, they’ll give you a definitive number: 55. The Baltimore Police Department, which in the past has been known for massaging statistics, list 65 arrests for homicides that occurred in 2017.
These important barometers of law enforcement effectiveness aren’t too far apart.
But another key homicide statistic shows a bigger discrepancy between how many murders have occurred and how many perpetrators have ended up in handcuffs; the city’s homicide clearance rate.
It’s a figure expressed as a percentage of murders in a given year divided by arrests, which BPD says currently stands at 58 percent. This number is often touted by the police department as an indicator of how many killers they’re taking off the streets. But an analysis by the AFRO found it has a murky provenance that doesn’t always come with an asterisk explaining exactly what the number means.
That’s because the clearance rate isn’t based solely upon arrests for cases which occurred this year. Instead, the number includes homicide arrests tied to cases which happened in years past. Put simply, based solely on homicide arrests made for cases which occurred this year the clearance rate would be cut roughly in half of what the BPD lists on its official statistics report circulated daily among law enforcement agencies.
Police spokesman T.J. Smith told the AFRO, 50 arrests from cases which occurred prior to 2017 are figured into the department’s official 58 percent clearance rate. Among those Smith says, are 39 cases closed for reasons not directly tied to an arrest, including the death of a suspect, a federal indictment of a person suspected of a murder, and two cases prosecutors declined to pursue.
Still, he says this method of calculation is standard and is used by police departments across the country.
“Arrest is not the only way to measure homicide (clearance) rate. Sometimes, the suspect dies. Sometimes, one suspect is responsible for more than one murder,” Smith said in an email.
“Just like a man died earlier this year after being shot in 2007 and his death was ruled a homicide last week‑ counts as a murder this year. The same is true when we arrest suspects from homicides of previous years.”
Former Baltimore police Lieutenant Stephen Tabeling, who served in the city’s homicide unit in the 1970s, says adding arrests from past cases to increase the clearance rate has been a long-standing way to bolster the numbers, even if it leads to a misleading picture of how efficiently murders are being solved in the present. Full disclosure: This reporter co-authored a book on policing with Tabeling.
“They’ll take a case from 1928 it doesn’t matter,” Tabeling told the AFRO. “It’s all about the stats, they want to make the numbers look good.”
The clearance calculation methodology raises concerns among those tasked with discerning how effective the city’s law enforcement agencies are battling violence.
“The money we dedicate to policing means the numbers have to give an accurate picture of what is and isn’t working,” Councilman Kristopher Burnett, a member of the city’s public safety committee told the AFRO.
“People get frustrated when they think the numbers are fudged.”
Like many of his colleagues on the council, Burnett has been a proponent of the ‘Cure Violence’ model, which uses community mediation to prevent violence before it happens. The strategy, which is at the heart of programs like Safe Streets, was the subject of a pitched budget battle this year when Mayor Catherine Pugh initially cut funds for the program while increasing spending on policing. All the more reason Burnett says, for getting a clear picture of if that spending is making the city safer.
“We need honest numbers to make the right decision. If something isn’t working I’d rather know it so we can put the resources where they’re needed and where they would be most effective.”