Shima Baughman, a Professor of Criminal Law, wrote an article titled “Police solve just 2% of all major crimes.” The author researched police reports issued within the last fifty years and found that it fails to solve serious crimes. The findings of Baughman prompted the author to conclude that the United States’ police force is ineffective in its efforts to solve crimes. Baughman argues that police are useless in performing their primary duty — finding criminals and holding them accountable.
The police forces do not arrest a sufficient number of suspects, and even fewer people are convicted of serious crimes. This reference is an umbrella term for criminal actions with severe consequences, such as burglaries or aggravated assault. As Baughman (2020) notes, police arrest a suspect only in 11% of cases, and only 2% result in a conviction, which the author refers to as the criminal accountability rate. These statistics about the police force’s efforts towards combatting serious crimes is discouraging and requires the public to raise a question about the efficiency of their work methods.
Another issue with criminal accountability is that people often do not report these crimes and the police. Hence, only about half of the crimes are registered, and a small percentage of criminals are convicted (Baughman, 2020). These factors point out the need to change the way police investigates cases and arrests suspects. Additionally, a change should be made to the way the general public perceives crime and reports it. Overall, Baughman’s article is about the insufficiency of the work that the police do to solve severe crimes since only 2% of cases result in a conviction. Half of these felonies are not reported, and the police issue an arrest in 11% of cases.
Reference
Baughman, S. (2020). Police solve just 2% of all major crimes. The Conversation. Web.