Here’s Where Homicides Go Unsolved In Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA – More than half of the homicides in America’s 50 largest cities went unsolved over the past 10 years, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. The Post’s analysis of 52,000 criminal homicides identified zones within cities where there were more than eight homicides but the arrest rate was less than 30 percent.

In Philadelphia, 45 percent of homicides tracked over the past decade went unsolved, according to the analysis.

According to the Post’s data, there were 3,037 homicides in Philadelphia between 2007 and 2017 and 55 percent of these homicides resulted in an arrest. The Post found two zones in Philly where the arrest rate was less than 30 percent. One was in West Philadelphia in the area of West Girard Avenue near the Philadelphia Zoo and the other was near the Stanton neighborhood in North Philadelphia West.

Conversely, there were four zones in Philly where there were high homicide rates and high arrest rates. These zones were in the following areas: Paschall, Powellton Village, Frankford, and Germantown.

A map compiled by The Post also showed areas where fewer than 1 in 3 homicides resulted in an arrest. Nationally, the overall average arrest rate for these areas was 14 percent.

While the majority of homicide victims in Philadelphia were black, the arrest rates were highest in cases where the victims were Asian, according to the Post’s findings. That was consistent with the trend identified by the Post nationally. The Post found that in 44 of the 47 cities where a victim’s race was reliably recorded, a white victim’s homicide resulted in an arrest more often than a minority victim’s homicide.

Other findings from the Post’s analysis include:

• 34 of the 50 cities analyzed have a lower homicide arrest rate now compared to a decade ago
• Killings have increased in 17 cities over the past decade and police now make fewer arrests in these cities
• An arrest was made in 63 percent of homicides of white victims compared with 48 percent of Latino victims and 46 percent of black victims
• Almost all the low-arrest zones are home primarily to low-income black residents

Read the full analysis from The Post here.

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