How Did L.A. Police Solve So Many Killings in 2025?

Homicide clearance rates — a measure of the number of killings police solve compared to the number of killings that happen in a year — have been tumbling for decades. Police in the 1960s could boast a more than 90 percent clearance rate, on national average; by 2023, this had fallen below 51 percent.

But new hope shone in 2025, as clearance rates ticked back up. The national homicide clearance rate rose several percentage points from 2023 to 2025, and some cities reported record highs. Chicago marked its highest homicide clearance rate in 13 years, at 71 percent, and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) announced a 101 percent clearance rate.

LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton credits a mix of organizational changes, technology, community outreach and unusual crime trends.

A high clearance rate “shows that you’re addressing the problem, you’re taking it seriously,,” Hamilton says. “It shows you actually have a community concern for providing justice to these families that are permanently victimized by homicide.”

What Are Clearance Rates?

High clearance rates matter. People are less likely to commit crimes if they believe they’ll get caught, says Jillian Snider, a retired New York City police officer and current R Street Institute resident senior fellow. Also, the public trusts the police more when they see a higher number of cases get solved.

“There’s a lot of research that shows that when members of the public know that their police agency is solving a high rate of homicides in their area, they’re actually more willing to communicate with law enforcement, be active witnesses or participants in investigations … and have just an overall higher level of feelings of legitimacy and trust with their local police,” Snider says.

That said, clearance rates are not a perfect measure of police effectiveness in a given year. They’re a ratio of the number of killings solved compared to the number of murders reported that year. A low number of murders, as occurred last year, could skew the numbers. And any murder police solve from a previous year also counts toward the current year’s clearance rate. 

Cases are considered cleared if officers arrest, charge and turn a suspect over for prosecution, regardless of whether the person is ultimately found guilty at trial. Cases are also considered cleared if officers have the information to justify arresting someone but are stopped by a factor outside their control, such as if the suspect has died. Such “exceptional” clearances are uncommon, Hamilton says.

What Happened in L.A.?

Last year, LAPD cleared 156 of the 230 homicides that occurred in 2025 (68 percent), and cleared 78 homicides from earlier years. That gave it a 101 percent clearance rate, up from the 70-80 percent that Hamilton says is typical for the department.

Two big changes happened last year. One was administrative.

In October, LAPD brought four separate homicide units into the Detective Bureau’s Robbery-Homicide Division. That consolidation reduced the number of approvals investigators had to go through to get access to the crime lab, since they were now part of the bureau that houses it. This easier access accelerated investigations, Hamilton says.

The other big factor was the unusually low homicide rate in 2025.

“We were able to work some of the older cases because of the lack of newer cases,” Hamilton says. Many of the cases LAPD cleared in 2025 were 1-2 years old and just needed a bit more work to be able to file, Hamilton says. The city also has thousands of cold cases that detectives still hope to get through.

Criminal justice experts have offered many theories for why murder rates fell nationwide, but there’s no conclusive answer. In L.A., Hamilton credits a mix of factors including police seizing many more guns and arresting more people involved in violent crimes.

“It’s no coincidence that we seized a record number of guns in the same year that we had a record drop in homicide,” Hamilton says.

The drop in killings could also be partially due to the impact of community intervention and diversion programs. That includes the city’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development, which has long worked to prevent and reduce gang violence and gang membership, Hamilton says. Other factors included federal partnerships that have helped identify major criminal networks. Hamilton says the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could possibly also have deterred some crime by making law enforcement a very visible element in the city.

Longer running strategies also continue to help. DNA analysis improvements have allowed progress on older cases, and use of surveillance tools like video cameras, automated license place readers and drones are helping police get information more quickly after a new killing happens.

“The first few hours of a homicide investigation are critical for moving forward,” Hamilton says.

Because police tend to know the time and location of killings, they can pinpoint what surveillance footage they want to examine. They use AI tools to further help them filter. The federal National Integrated Ballistic Information Network also helps officers get more and faster information about bullet casings collected from crime scenes. That can help reveal whether the bullets are from guns associated with certain criminal organizations, people or vehicles, for example.

‘The Secret Sauce’

Strong community relationships are also the “secret sauce” to helping detectives get the information they need to solve complex cases, Hamilton says. LAPD’s community-police advisory boards give residents a voice in how their communities are policed and provide police with essential crime-solving information.

“You don’t get 101 percent clearance rate without those community contacts. It doesn’t happen,” Hamilton says. Policymakers, not just police, can also help maintain this kind of community trust by investing in local lighting, safe street designs, local surveillance systems or other efforts that make residents feel the government cares about their safety, he says.

It’d be unrealistic to assume the department can reach a 101 percent clearance rate every year, Hamilton says. But overall, keeping clearance rates up takes investment.

“It takes resources,” he says. “It takes more bodies. It takes more technology. It takes more advances. It takes studying, it takes training, it takes a commitment. And then in addition to that, it takes the time to actually sit down with the community and have those hard discussions” about heading off violent crimes and dealing with the next one that happens.