This study examines homicide clearance rates in the United States using the FBI’s supplementary homicide reports data spanning from 1976 to 2017. The goal of this study is to examine the effects of circumstances in which homicides occurred on homicide clearance rates, and the effects of victim’s race, age, and gender on homicide clearance rates. The analyses are based on 769,753 total homicide cases that were reported to the FBI. The actual data set includes information for 757,801 victims and 513,863 offenders total. The results of this study show that a typical profile of a homicide victim whose case is more likely to remain unsolved is that of a black male between the ages of 21 to 30 who is killed in a juvenile gang-related killing circumstance. By gender, this study shows that the clearance rate for homicide cases involving female victims is 8.4% higher than for male homicide victims.

The purpose of this study is to develop an evidence‐based set of inductive profiles based on matched victim‐offender characteristics of homicide cases. To develop these homicide profiles, we used national data from the FBI's supplementary homicide reports that were reported by law enforcement agencies for a period of 42 years, from 1976 to 2017 in the United States. The findings that emerged from the study show that female offenders tend to kill victims of the opposite gender; whereas male offenders kill more victims within their own gender. The probability of becoming a victim of homicide increases for white people and decreases for black people as the offender's age increases. Overall, offenders tend to kill victims about their own age, and as offenders get older, they are more likely to kill female victims than male victims.