A retired NYPD homicide detective told Fox News Digital that significant cultural and policy shifts in 2020, including bail reform and George Floyd backlash, are contributing to low homicide case clearance rates across the United States. 

According to the Murder Accountability Project, which tracks unsolved homicides, the homicide case clearances – that is, the percentage of homicides where a perpetrator is identified, arrested and referred for prosecution – plummeted to an all-time low of 52.3% in 2022. Clearance rates were above 60% before 2020, according to the organization, which cites data from the FBI.

“So there was a seismic change in law enforcement in 2020,” Teresa Leto told Fox News Digital. 

NYPD officers respond to the scene of a shooting that left multiple people injured in the Flatbush neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough on April 6, 2021, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

“They made it easier for people to get out of jail without posting bail, because a lot of people didn’t afford bail,” Leto said. “And they deemed certain crimes as nonviolent. So, for example, [third-degree robbery], which is forcibly taking property from a person, which is violent, that’s deemed as a nonviolent crime.”

When violent offenders are let out on bail, they go right back to committing crimes, possibly even escalating their levels of violence.

“So, that all added to the fact that less cases are being handled, and less cases are being cleared,” Leto said. 

Washington Metropolitan Police officers investigate a shooting at the Potomac Avenue Metro Station in Southeast Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By their very nature, homicides also require more investigative work than they did several years ago, Leto explained. 

With security cameras now ubiquitous on both public and on private property, and with cellphone data becoming crucial to prosecutions, it simply takes more time for detectives to gather relevant evidence and present that evidence for prosecution. 

“So, even if you know in your heart … who the suspect is, you have to have the evidence, you have to have DNA evidence, you have to have technology, you have to have video, you have to have cellphone data to be able to solve it,” Leto said.