More than half of violent crimes in Washington state are going unsolved.

That sobering data point, shared with state lawmakers Thursday, comes as violent crime has dropped but remains far ahead of pre-pandemic figures.

Police in Washington solved just 44% of reported violent crimes last year, said Marshall Clement, director of the Council of State Governments’ Justice Center. That amounts to solving 62% of homicides, 51% of aggravated assaults, 31% of robberies and just 25% of rapes.

“How low can this rate go before the entire criminal justice system is rendered useless?” Clement told a state House panel. “Nothing else in our criminal justice can even happen, rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation, unless we have a system that actually solves the majority of violent crime.”

Before

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