Police barely solve any crime

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Clearspira, since it's the topic of the thread, do you know what success rate police in the UK have for solving serious crime?

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth.

[clearspira]

Clearspira, since it's the topic of the thread, do you know what success rate police in the UK have for solving serious crime?

What percentage of murders are solved in UK?

In the three years from the year ending March 2018 to the year ending March 2020, 79% of suspects indicted for homicide, where we have information on a court outcome, were found guilty of homicide, 14% were acquitted, and 4% were convicted of a lesser offence (Appendix Table 24).
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... gmarch2020

Clearance rate - crime clearance rate U.S. 2020, by type

In 2020, murder and manslaughter charges had the highest crime clearance rate in the United States, with 54.4 percent of all cases being cleared by arrest or so-called exceptional means.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/194 ... in-the-us/

According to these sites, and by my admittedly mediocre maths skill, the UK police solve 24.6% more murders than the US police.

The rape prosecution rate is basically identical in both UK and US. But that is because rape is such an incredibly hard crime to prove. Innocent until guilty means innocent until proven guilty - as I said earlier in the thread.

[Thebestoftherest]

It doesn't help, that rape is one of those subject people don't like to talk about.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Thank you for answering my curiosity, clearspira. It's good to know that some police actually solve crimes.

[McAvoy]

Wait... Did Fuzzy's post get merged with DBF's dumb shit?

That fucking quickly?

[TGLS]

Wait... Did Fuzzy's post get merged with DBF's dumb shit?

That fucking quickly?

No, I just merged in his most recent post and its responses into the DBF megathread.

[Riedquat]

Clearspira, since it's the topic of the thread, do you know what success rate police in the UK have for solving serious crime?

What percentage of murders are solved in UK?

In the three years from the year ending March 2018 to the year ending March 2020, 79% of suspects indicted for homicide, where we have information on a court outcome, were found guilty of homicide, 14% were acquitted, and 4% were convicted of a lesser offence (Appendix Table 24).
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... gmarch2020

Clearance rate - crime clearance rate U.S. 2020, by type

In 2020, murder and manslaughter charges had the highest crime clearance rate in the United States, with 54.4 percent of all cases being cleared by arrest or so-called exceptional means.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/194 ... in-the-us/

According to these sites, and by my admittedly mediocre maths skill, the UK police solve 24.6% more murders than the US police.

There's a subtle but important difference there - the UK number is the number of suspects convicted, the US one the number of murder and manslaughter cases. Putting aside whether manslaughter cases are more or less likely to result in a conviction than murder the important difference is that to solve a case you first need a suspect - what's missing is how many murders in the UK lead to a suspect being identified.

[Frustration]

Indeed. The UK could potentially arrest someone in only one in a thousand cases, and still have that statistic for indicted suspects convicted.

You may find the following link interesting:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/c ... 47191.html

Fewer and fewer crimes are prosecuted in the UK, across all categories - so it can't be explained by postulating an increase in minor crimes alone.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Okay, so better than the USA but still pretty pathetic.

[Beastro]

https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/08/20/ ... %20More%20

Hope this doesn't get absorbed by DBZ's thread. It's not about whether the police are racist or violent. It's about what the police actually accomplish, this public good that we weigh and debate and fund. (Still something worth referring to when debating anything else about the police though.)

This isn't surprising. You take any criminology course and you get slapped in the face by the rhetoric around crime fighting which tries to come off hopeful and positive but also can't help but admit this. Criminology especially reluctantly admits that is has an especially horrible track record and REALLY doesn't like to admit that classical forms of punishment aren't great, but have the best results compared to reform and other theories.

Don't look on crime as a problem requiring a solution. It involves the human element so much and that will always throw people off. It is part of the human condition.

I have to say that much the same could be said of mental health. From what I've seen, there is only so much that mental health professionals can do and they can't do anything if clients do not want to change and do the work. Sometimes there are hard limits given what has happened to someone and they can only do their best to heal from what has happened to them.

Does that mean mental health is wrong and needs reform? No. It is an intrinsic part of mental health and all the more reason to keep trying, but I can see why so many counselors and therapist become apathetic and burned out.

Same with the fact that poverty will never go away and that some prefer it. I know that last bit you'll bulk at, Fuzzy, but people do. Near my hometown right by where my brother used to live is an older guy that has spent the better part of a decade living on the curb homeless by a Tim Horton's. We drove by years ago and my brother pointed him out, he mentioned that the guy's a millionaire. He heard that the town planned to build some condos where he hangs at and decided to protest it by camping out, only he seems to prefer it now and ignores his family and his old life for scrounging up whatever money he can cleaning the Tim Horton's park lot for them in exchange for a bit of food and coffee everyday.

Back to the police. I'm reminded of something someone in the defence industry said to me about war and how horribly inefficient it is, to paraphrase: "People like to this it's the 99% efficient army that beats the 90% efficient army, but the fact is that it's always more the 8% efficient army that beats the 5% efficient one."