TN violent crime clearance rate sits at 35%

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is working to improve the state's violent crime clearance rate. Director David Rausch told Gov. Bill Lee during a budget hearing Tuesday that the state's rate is about 35%, which is 5% higher than the national average.

"As we look at violent crime clearance rates throughout the country, they are not in a good spot," Rausch said.

Raush told Lee staffing is one of the main ways to help get a case to court for prosecutors.

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"There are cases that are going to be cleared by exception because there's no longer a suspect, maybe deceased but I think prosecution rates are probably the more refined way of seeing how impactful we can be on violent crime," he said.

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They need staffing in specific areas like intel analysts, cold cases, aviation teams and victims services.

He explained that victims services is at the top of their list because they can have a big impact on the violent crime clearance rate. But right now, most times victims services don't step in until there's a suspect named in a crime.

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"Once that victims services immediate connection with those victims it lets them see that we care and we want to help them and then in turn they want to help us and so it opens up that communication path where many times if you don't have that initial connection you don't get the information that you need," he said.

Rausch added that the need for victim services personnel has been exacerbated by losses in federal funding.

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The Philippines said on Wednesday it would not stand in the way if former President Rodrigo Duterte wants to surrender to the International Criminal Court, and would be obliged to comply with any international arrest warrant over his "war on drugs". During a congressional hearing on Wednesday into the bloody crackdown on narcotics that killed thousands of Filipinos, the mercurial Duterte said he was not scared of the ICC and told it to "hurry up" on its investigation into possible crimes against humanity. The office of the current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr issued a statement hours later indicating it would be willing to consider handing Duterte over if an Interpol request was made.