Too many violent crimes go unsolved in Minnesota. In 2024, the probability of clearing a violent crime case in Minnesota was worse than the flip of a coin, at only 46.3 percent. When cases go unsolved, victims and their families are forced to do the difficult work of healing without justice, exacerbating emotional harm and threatening their feeling of safety. This lack of justice disproportionately affects Black communities, which nationally see the lowest rate of homicide clearances among racial groups despite facing the highest rate of homicide victimization.
The research is clear on how to better protect communities. Increasing the certainty of facing consequences for crime is vastly more effective at deterring the next crime than increasing the severity of punishment. Improving clearance rates helps ensure repeat offenders are held responsible for the harm they cause and strengthens confidence in law enforcement. In recent years, Minnesota legislators across the aisle have come together to address public safety by investing in local law enforcement and increasing investigative capacity to ensure swift and certain consequences for serious crimes without needlessly extending prison sentences or undermining civil liberties. With these efforts already returning promising results, Minnesota lawmakers should continue to work as a bipartisan coalition to build on the progress being made to improve clearance rates and make Minnesotans safer.
Promising practices in Minnesota
Minnesota has already taken significant steps to provide local law enforcement with the resources and tools they need to solve serious crimes. Inspired by Denver’s Firearm Assault Shoot Team, a unit specifically tasked with solving nonfatal shootings, the Minnesota State Legislature approved funding for the St. Paul Police Department Nonfatal Shooting Unit to launch in 2024. By devoting greater resources and attention to nonfatal shootings as if they were “failed homicides,” the unit saw a 32 percentage-point increase in the nonfatal shooting solve rate within two years. Building on the successes of St. Paul’s unit, the Minneapolis Police Department launched its own nonfatal shooting unit in March 2026.
In May 2026, the Minnesota State Legislature passed with bipartisan support supplemental appropriations for public safety programs in the state, including the establishment of the Minnesota Clearance Grant Program and a one-time appropriation of $905,000 to “award grants to law enforcement agencies to reduce violent crime by increasing the solve rate of crimes that involve the nonfatal shooting of a firearm.”
Here are four ways Minnesota can further support the work of local law enforcement to deliver accountability for people who commit crimes and bring justice to victims and their families.
- Replicate the success of nonfatal shooting units by hiring more investigators and dedicating resources to specialized units.
- Pass additional legislation to build on the Minnesota Clearance Grant Program, creating multiyear grants to help local police departments acquire and train investigators on emerging crime-solving technologies while ensuring accountability and clear oversight.
- Prioritize police and investigator time by replicating successful models of creating civilian positions within police departments to unburden sworn officers.
- Ensure victims of violent crime receive justice by investing in victim liaisons and passing legislation to promote accessible, equitable, and comprehensive victim compensation.
Hiring investigators and creating specialized units
Police departments tend to dedicate more resources to solving homicides, and as a result, homicides typically have higher clearance rates than nonfatal shootings, as is the case in Minnesota. However, there is mounting evidence that devoting the same or similar resources to solving nonfatal shootings is equally important to making communities safer. “Safer communities start with solving crimes, and solving non-fatal shootings will help remove illegal guns and dangerous individuals off our streets,” said Ramsey County Attorney John Choi when discussing the need for more state funding to increase arrests and prosecutions of nonfatal shootings.
By tracing crime guns used in nonfatal shootings and making connections between shootings, prioritizing solving nonfatal shootings has the potential to prevent future homicides. However, a lack of funding, staffing, and access to methods to rapidly process crime scene forensic evidence forces police departments to make difficult decisions about which cases to prioritize.
Where specialized units have been created to specifically devote highly trained investigators and resources to solving nonfatal shootings—such as in Denver, St. Paul, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Columbus, Ohio, and now Minneapolis—these units have all seen early success improving clearance rates for nonfatal shootings and should serve as a model for law enforcement agencies across the state.
Improve training and accountability
Evaluations between high- and low-performing police agencies have found “investigations can be improved through better management, training, policies, use of technology, and investigative techniques.” Minnesota police departments should also seek to improve their clearance rates by ensuring investigators and detectives have received adequate training on how to best collect, process, and use evidence from emerging technologies.
While rapid advances in technology have increased the evidence and tools available to investigators, they also have made workloads more demanding, largely due to the sheer volume of data investigators and crime labs must sort through and process. Training investigators to process and analyze evidence from these emerging technologies therefore has the potential to make caseloads more manageable and ensure investigators are working efficiently and effectively.
The Minnesota Clearance Grant Program will provide immediate and essential support for local law enforcement and ensure police and investigators have access to this training. Minnesota lawmakers should consider passing additional legislation that builds on the Minnesota Clearance Grant Program to create multiyear grants aimed specifically at supporting the education and training of police, investigators, and prosecutors to ensure cases can seamlessly transition from evidence collection to analysis to prosecution of those responsible for harm.
Prioritize police time
Facing elevated violent crime rates and a shortage of sworn officers in 2020 and 2021, many large police agencies pursued strategies to maximize the impact and reach of remaining officers. Since 2021, those agencies’ cities have seen historic year-over-year declines in homicides and gun victimizations, confirming that how sworn officers are deployed can have a larger effect on public safety than how many officers are deployed to communities.
Police officers are often asked to do the jobs of several people while simultaneously doing the most critical job of all: protecting the public from crime. Police cannot, and should not, be expected to handle alone every issue that arises in communities. Police and communities alike can benefit from reassigning nonenforcement responsibilities and administrative tasks to civilian positions while seeing no increased risk to public safety.
In 2022, for example, Baltimore created and funded 35 civilian positions to “free up [Baltimore’s] sworn detectives to better meet the needs of our residents by being out on our streets, deterring and solving crimes.” Nonsworn, civilian roles within the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) can include administrative roles such as information technology specialists and support, records management, and 911 dispatchers, but can also include roles that specifically relate to solving more cases, such as positions with the cold case, forensics, and crime analytics units. According to BPD, hiring more civilian roles can lighten the administrative burden on officer time, save on overtime costs, and redeploy officers to spend more time on patrol and in the community.
Minnesota law enforcement agencies can immediately help prioritize the time of sworn officers to focus on the most serious crimes by following the successful examples where this has already occurred.
Support victims
Victims of and witnesses to serious crimes and shootings offer essential accounts to police and investigators. Improving how law enforcement and investigators work with victims and witnesses in a trauma-informed and dignified way, therefore, has the potential to improve clearance rates.
Minnesota lawmakers have already shown their commitment to protecting and serving victims: They passed several laws with bipartisan support that went into effect in 2026, including disarming abusers and appropriating $12 million for domestic violence shelters and victim service providers. Furthermore, with the passage of the Minnesota Clearance Grant Program, law enforcement agencies have the opportunity to apply for funding to support better, more trauma-informed victim services, such as hiring and training victim liaisons. Studies consistently link victim advocate involvement to higher rates of victim engagement, case progression, and convictions, especially in domestic violence cases. The Non-Fatal Advocacy and Support Program, a pilot program in Indianapolis, connects shooting survivors with community advocates who have experience with gun violence and will work with the victims and their families to provide immediate and ongoing support to navigate victim services and work with investigators. Preliminary findings suggest “program participants were more likely to engage with detectives investigating their cases,” which could mean more cases solved efficiently. Further evidence from the pilot program points to more positive outcomes and shows that the program may have “contributed to a slight reduction in reinjury rates.”
Minnesota can go further to make sure victims of violence are taken care of by ensuring its victim compensation program is accessible, equitable, and comprehensive, which can help build trust with local law enforcement. In 2025, the Center for American Progress published the State Victim Compensation Statute Rubric, a comprehensive review and evaluation of state crime victim compensation statutes, in which Minnesota ranked 20th of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. CAP’s analysis found that Minnesota could improve access to its state victim compensation program by removing contributory conduct clauses, expanding eligibility for victims and their families by revising the definition of victim and relationship to victim, and raising total compensation allowable, especially for emergency expenses.
Conclusion
Minnesotans should be proud of the progress their state has made in recent years to solve more crimes faster, including passing the Minnesota Clearance Grant Program and empowering cities to replicate successful initiatives such as the St. Paul Police Department Nonfatal Shooting Unit. Higher clearance rates signal to Minnesotans that victims of serious crimes are being prioritized, not forgotten. This commitment to victims and their families should not end here. Building on the progress Minnesota has already made, lawmakers across the state should double down and continue to invest in the technologies, personnel, and strategies proven to work and ensure Minnesotans are not just safer today, but for the next generation.