A closer look: What's behind San Jose's extraordinarily high homicide clearance rate?

"We're tenacious like that, and we and everybody cares from the beginning, so we're not playing catch-up. So we're able to follow the lead, do the 48-hour investigation," she said, referring to the crucial investigative window immediately after a killing. "Everybody wants to be here."

"We don't see it as 100%. We see it as hard work, dedication, hours and hours of work, and then it leads to the 100%," Estantino said. "People want to solve the homicide. It's the most dangerous and most shocking of the cases that we investigate."

"The San Jose-raised homicide detective is a member of an investigative unit that has achieved a 100% clearance rate for the past three full years, solving 35, 36, and 29 homicides in 2022, 2023 and 2024 respectively. In 2025, with 18 homicide cases to date through Thursday, the department is reporting a 100% rate."

"The homicide clearance rate is extraordinary for a city that hovers around 1 million residents. San Jose does have some not-so-big-city characteristics working in its favor, like a modest homicide frequency: The city has not tallied 50 killings in a single year in over three decades. Even then, San Jose's clearance rate still stands out among peer cities both in the Bay Area and across the country."

"Nationally, just over 50 percent of homicides get cleared, according to statistics maintained by the FBI. San Francisco also boasts a high rate, with clearance figures of 85%, 94% and 94% between 2022 and 2024, while Oakland has posted clearance rates of 35%, 50%, and 64% in that same stretch, according to figures provided by those cities' police departments."

Amanda Estantino, a San Jose-raised homicide detective, routinely works long hours and often stays on cases through the crucial 48-hour investigative window. Her unit recorded a 100% clearance rate for three full years, solving 35, 36, and 29 homicides in 2022–2024, and maintaining 100% through 18 cases so far in 2025. The unit credits tenacity, dedication and exhaustive hours of work rather than focusing on statistics. San Jose's population near one million and historically modest homicide counts contribute, but the city's clearance rate still outperforms many peer cities and national averages.

Read at The Mercury News