Nearly 185,000 U.S. homicides since 1980 remain unsolved

Every year in America, 6,000 killers get away with murder. The percentage of homicides that go unsolved in the United States has risen alarmingly even as the homicide rate has fallen to levels last seen in the 1960s. Despite dramatic improvements in DNA analysis and other breakthroughs in forensic science, police fail to make an arrest in more than one-third of all homicides. National clearance rates for murder and manslaughter have fallen from about 90 percent in the 1960s to below 65 percent in recent years.

The majority of homicides now go unsolved at dozens of big-city police departments, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of crime records provided by the FBI. "This is very frightening," said Bill Hagmaier, executive director of the International Homicide Investigators Association and retired chief of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. "We'd expect that -- with more police officers, more scientific tools likes DNA analysis and more computerized records -- we'd be clearing more homicides now with more resources," Hagmaier said. "But the clearance rates have fallen drastically." Nearly 185,000 killings went unsolved from 1980 to 2008.

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Driven to Distraction

A study that showed the real danger of distracted drivers: those that use cell phones and other devices while on the road was never released because of a fear of angering Congress. That such a thing could happen in the United States is a sad commentary on politics. The information could have been used to change laws to make our highways less dangerous and save lives. Drivers using cell phones on the road, especially while texting, are a major danger.

The study was sought based on evidence that such multitasking was a serious and growing threat on America’s roadways. But such an ambitious study never happened. And the researchers’ agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration , decided not to make public hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the use of phones by drivers — in part, officials say, because of concerns about angering Congress.

On Tuesday, the full body of research is being made public for the first time by two consumer advocacy groups, which filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the documents. The Center for Auto Safety and Public Citizen provided a copy to The New York Times, which is publishing the documents on its website.

In interviews, the officials who withheld the research offered their fullest explanation to date. The former head of the highway safety agency said he was urged to withhold the research to avoid antagonizing members of Congress who had warned the agency to stick to its mission of gathering safety data but not to lobby states.

Critics say that rationale and the failure of the Transportation Department, which oversees the highway agency, to more vigorously pursue distracted driving has cost lives and allowed to blossom a culture of behind-the-wheel multitasking.

"U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving", New York Times, 7/20/09.

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