Boston lags in identifying suspects in homicides

Boston is on its way to recording more homicides this year than it has in nearly a decade, but police have made arrests or identified suspects in less than 40 percent of those cases -- significantly lower than last year, police said yesterday.

So far this year, Boston has had 63 homicides, three of which fell under State Police jurisdiction. Boston police have cleared 23 of their 60 cases, either by arresting suspects, identifying them, or issuing warrants, according to figures released last night. It wasn't clear last night if arrests have been made in the three State Police cases.

The Boston police clearance rate last year for 41 homicides was more than 50 percent, police officials said. As of Dec. 1 last year, police had solved 21 of 34 homicides, or 62 percent. In previous years, the rate has been as high as 60 percent, officials said.

Boston's success in solving homicides so far this year is lower than the national average, which is above 60 percent.

''It's not a great clearance record," said Lieutenant Kevin Foley, a police spokesman.

Police last night didn't have specific explanations for why the clearance rate is lower this year.

Criminologists said that clearance rates tend to decline as homicides spike, in part because about the same number of detectives are chasing far more cases.

''It's a function of the surge in homicide and the nature of those homicides," said James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, who maintains the US Department of Justice homicide database.

''Gang killings, drive-by killings, random homicides are the most difficult to solve not just because there's a lack of physical evidence, but also because of the unwillingness of many to come forward and share information, whether because of the fear of coming forward or the code of silence that creates that fear."

Boston police could not break down what portion of this year's homicides are gang-related. However, officials said that gang violence is not the cause of the decline in cleared cases.

''This is a fallacy," Foley said. ''Some are gang-related, but most of our homicides are crimes of passion. Some of it is about kids feeling dissed. It's absolutely not true that most are not solved because they are gang-related."

At the same time that DNA testing and other technologies are advancing, local police and prosecutors say they are having trouble with a more basic key to solving crimes -- witnesses.

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, whose office prosecutes Boston homicide cases, is among a coalition of officials across the state pushing for sweeping antigang legislation designed in part to persuade witnesses to testify and cooperate with authorities. The legislation, among other things, would create a state witness protection program and broaden the legal definition of witness intimidation.

Police also said they are focusing on getting convictions and said they believe the conviction rate in this year's homicide cases will be higher. ''We're very mindful of wrongful convictions and don't want to be arresting people prematurely," a senior police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said last night.

Since taking over in February, Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole has instituted reforms designed to improve the prospects of convicting homicide suspects. These changes include recording suspect interviews, reducing bias in lineups, adding more experienced detectives to the homicide unit, using grand juries to bolster police investigations, and shutting down the department's troubled fingerprint lab, which was blamed for a wrongful conviction in a police shooting case.

''The commissioner has raised the bar on homicide investigations," Foley said. ''She wants the homicide unit to have a real good case prepared, so there's no chance of it getting thrown out of court."

Steve Kurkjian of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Stephanie Vosk contributed to this report. Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com