Devaluation and solvability: The quest for factors affecting violent crime clearance

• In Event: Poster Session 1

Abstract

The gradual decline in clearance rates has been a concern for criminologists and practitioners. Although researchers have given different explanations for this decline and how criminal justice actors can increase violent crime clearance, most researchers focus on arrests and police decisions—neglecting exceptional clearances and the effect victim and prosecutorial decisions have on the decline in crime clearance. Moreover, many studies on crime clearance focus on homicides, use unrepresentative datasets, and do not control for community characteristics. This dissertation, therefore, expands the violent crime clearance literature by using incident, police, and community characteristics to examine the factors affecting violent crime (homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and rape) clearance by arrest, victim noncooperation, and prosecution declined.

Author

• Isaac Paintsil, Texas State University