Major City Homicide Detectives Overwhelmed by Murder Rate

Since 2012, someone has been murdered nearly every 24 hours in Detroit, a city long plagued by violence. Despite sweeping changes to make the homicide division more efficient, police arrest suspects in fewer than half of all killings.

Over a five-year period, each detective in Detroit has been tasked with solving an average of about eight new slayings annually — a caseload exceeding what policing experts say should be no more than five homicides per detective, per year.

Major police departments that are successful at making arrests in homicides generally assign detectives fewer than five cases annually, according to a Washington Post analysis of homicide caseloads in 48 cities.