The percentage of reported crimes that police solve or clear is known as what?

• A. Clearance rates
• B. Clearance rate disparities
• C. Exceptional clearances
• D. Gold standard data on police lethal force

Answer: (A)

Clearance rates measure the share of reported crimes that law enforcement has officially cleared. A crime is considered cleared when it is solved—typically by an arrest and charging the suspect, or by an exceptional clearance (where the offender is identified but not arrested, due to circumstances like death or victim’s refusal to prosecute). The calculation is the number of offenses cleared divided by the number of offenses reported to police, expressed as a percentage. This is the standard way to express how effectively police are solving reported crimes. The other options relate to different ideas: disparities describe differences in rates across groups or places, exceptional clearances are a specific subset within clearance data, and gold standard data on police lethal force concerns a completely different topic.