The VICTIM Act Returns: A Federal Answer to a State-Level Movement on Unsolved Violent Crime

Across the United States, the share of violent crimes that law enforcement actually solves has fallen to historic lows. The national homicide clearance rate reached 61.4 percent in 2024—a modest improvement over the 2022 low of 52.3 percent but still well below the 72 percent rate recorded in 1980 and the 93 percent rate reported in 1962. Clearance for other violent offenses remains far lower at roughly 49 percent for aggravated assault, 30 percent for robbery, and just 27 percent for rape. The trend lines vary dramatically by state and even by neighborhood—in some urban jurisdictions, fewer than one in 10 nonfatal shootings results in an arrest. Behind each uncleared case is a victim (or a victim’s family) still waiting for answers.

That gap between reported crime and delivered justice is exactly what the newly reintroduced Violent Incident Clearance and Technological Investigative Methods (VICTIM) Act seeks to address. The bipartisan, bicameral legislation would direct the Attorney General to establish a grant program within the Department of Justice (DOJ)’sOffice of Community Oriented Policing Services to help state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies improve clearance rates for homicides and firearm-related violent crimes. It authorizes $300 million in funding over five years to hire and retain violent crime investigators, improve evidence processing, and expand access to victim services, with at least 5 percent each reserved for tribal and rural agencies—jurisdictions that are too often left out of competitive federal funding streams.

The bill allows recipients to use grant funding for things that actually move clearance rates, including:

• Hiring and retaining homicide and firearm-violence investigators
• Bringing on forensic and evidence-processing personnel
• Acquiring or upgrading investigative technology
• Retaining experts to conduct gun violence problem analysis
• Developing policies that safeguard civil rights and civil liberties during evidence collection and forensic testing
• Establishing officer wellness programs for personnel exposed to repeated trauma
• Designing and facilitating trauma-informed interview training
• Providing meaningful victim services including emergency food, housing, clothing, travel and transportation, language and disability access, and ongoing support for family members of homicide victims 

These are not peripheral concerns. Investigative burnout drives detectives to triage cases and miss time-sensitive leads; poorly conducted interviews cause victims and witnesses to disengage; and victims who lose access to housing, transportation, or follow-up support often withdraw from investigations entirely. 

Equally important is what the bill requires in return. Grant dollars without strong accountability mechanisms too often fund activity that produces no measurable change in solvability, and investigative technology funded without civil liberties guardrails can create new problems while trying to solve old ones. The VICTIM Act builds in safeguards for both: 

• Grant recipients must report annually on clearance rates, hired personnel, acquired technology, victim and suspect demographics, investigation length and outcomes, and the civil liberties policies governing any technology purchased with grant funds. 
• The DOJ Inspector General audits recipients, and any agency with unresolved audit findings becomes ineligible to receive further funds. 
• The National Institute of Justice conducts a biennial evaluation of which practices are actually working. 
• The Attorney General must design a streamlined application that any eligible agency can complete in two hours or less—a small but meaningful detail that recognizes how often small departments are locked out of federal funding by paperwork alone.

This is not a new policy fight. The first of several iterations of the VICTIM Act was introduced in 2021, and the case for the legislation has only grown stronger as clearance data has accumulated. Recent policy evaluations identify the operational realities behind the national numbers: 

• Staffing shortages
• Detective caseloads that exceed recommended thresholds by an order of magnitude
• Forensic backlogs measured in months or years
• Eroding witness cooperation
• Structural fragmentation that keeps related cases from being connected across jurisdictions 

The VICTIM Act maps cleanly onto each of these barriers.

More important than the legislative activity is what is starting to work on the ground. Clearance rates are beginning to move in jurisdictions that have adopted the sort of tactics the VICTIM Act would fund. 

• Saint Paul, Minnesota: Funded through a state clearance-support account, dedicated nonfatal-shooting teams pairing investigators, prosecutors, and crime analysts raised the city’s nonfatal shooting clearance rate from 37 percent to 71 percent in 2024. 
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The city’s Crime Gun Intelligence Center, which integrates rapid ballistic analysis with focused investigative follow-up, has produced measurable improvements in lead generation and gun-crime arrests. 
• Massachusetts: State police detectives embedded in each of the state district attorney’s offices have helped maintain a homicide clearance rate of over 90 percent—well above the national average. 

None of these results came from sweeping policy changes or new criminal statutes; instead, they came from the targeted investment in investigative capacity that the VICTIM Act would scale nationally.

That evidence is fueling multi-state legislative momentum under the federal bill, with several states already moving from proposal to enacted law.

• Michigan: The Violent Crime Clearance Act would respond to a statewide violent-crime clearance rate of roughly 42 percent by establishing a grant program to bolster investigative staffing, forensic capacity, and victim services.
• Minnesota: Created in 2023, the Violent Crime Reduction and Clearance Support account appropriates $15 million per year through the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. HF 1082 would build on that work by creating a dedicated clearance grant program in the state.
• Missouri: The Missouri Violent Crime Clearance Grant Program took effect in August 2025 to fund hiring, forensic capacity, evidence-based training, and information systems integration. Grant priority goes to agencies that publicly report low clearance rates. 
• Ohio: SB 425 and HB 830 would codify the state’s existing Violent Crime Reduction Grant Program and dedicate 20 percent of annual funding to clearance-rate improvement projects paired with incident-level reporting and an independent evaluation requirement.
• Pennsylvania: The VICTIM Act would establish a state-administered grant program targeting unsolved violent crime, with annual reporting on clearance rates and oversight by the Commission on Crime and Delinquency.
• Texas: HB 3577 and SB 2177 would create a grant program supporting investigative capacity for violent and sexual crimes, with required tracking of clearance rates and time to arrest.
• Utah: The state enacted the Violent Crime Clearance Rate Amendments to create a Violent Crime Clearance Rate Fund administered by the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, with a portion of grant funding set aside for rural departments.

The through line across these state efforts is the same one running through the federal proposal: Clearance rates have become a measurable, bipartisan public safety metric that policymakers can act on without picking sides in the broader policing debate. None of these bills change criminal law or expand police authority; instead, they invest in the capacity to solve crimes that are already reported and to support the victims of those crimes.

Rather than replacing state efforts, the federal VICTIM Act would reinforce them by providing a dedicated funding stream for the agencies that need it most, building in the audit and reporting structures that make grant programs accountable and ensuring that rural and tribal jurisdictions (which often lack dedicated homicide units altogether) are not left behind. The evidence-based practices Congress would be funding are the same ones that have already begun to bend clearance curves upward in the jurisdictions willing to invest in them. Every investigator who works a violent crime case knows the realities of limited time, competing leads, witnesses who may or may not call back, a clock that starts running the moment the call for service comes in, and a community waiting for answers. The bill would fund the tools, training, capacity, and victim services that shift those odds toward clearance. Endorsed by a broad coalition, the VICTIM Act of 2026 is a serious, targeted response to a serious, measurable problem and a federal complement to a state-level movement already in motion. Congress should pass it.