Chicago police are solving homicides at a far lower rate than their counterparts in some other major cities, which may reflect how hard it is for detectives to crack the culture of silence surrounding the violence committed by the city's street gangs.
Of the 432 homicides committed between January 1 and August 16 of this year, the department has solved 92. That's just 21% of them.
When homicides committed in all years are added in, the department says the clearance rate is about 30%. But even that figure is lower than the 49% clearance rate in Philadelphia, and 56% clearance rate in Houston, which ranks just behind Chicago in terms of population size.
