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GlossaryReports, outcomes, and case status

Clearance by arrest

Clearance by arrest is a UCR reporting outcome involving arrest, charging, and referral for prosecution. It is distinct from conviction and arrest totals.

Clearance by arrest is a Uniform Crime Reporting outcome recorded when an offense meets the program's arrest, charging, and referral-for-prosecution requirements. It describes how law enforcement accounts for a reported offense or incident. It does not mean that a court has convicted the arrested person.

More than an arrest label

The FBI's clearance explanation identifies three conditions: at least one person is arrested, charged with the offense, and turned over for prosecution through the applicable process. The explanation includes reporting through an arrest, summons, or police notice; the statistical category should not be reduced to whether someone spent time in a jail cell. FBI clearance criteria.

An arrest for an unrelated matter does not by itself establish a clearance of another reported offense. The reporting connection must be supported by the agency's investigation and the program's rules. Likewise, a dispatch disposition that says “arrest” is not enough to reconstruct the official clearance record.

For a resident reading a case summary, the useful interpretation is that a defined reporting milestone has been met. It is not a guarantee about the prosecution's eventual result or a statement that every investigative question has been answered.

Example

Hypothetical example: Investigators connect a suspect to three separately reported theft incidents. The agency completes the qualifying arrest, charging, and prosecution-referral steps for each under the applicable reporting rules.

One arrested person can therefore be associated with clearances of several incidents. Counting the person once and counting the cleared incidents three times describe different things; neither number should be substituted for the other.

In a second hypothetical situation, two people are arrested in connection with one reportable incident. Their two arrest records do not make the underlying incident count twice. The incident's clearance status and the number of arrested people remain separate fields or measures.

How NIBRS records the result

The FBI's NIBRS User Manual version 2025.0 explains that the first arrestee segment reported in connection with an incident automatically clears that incident. For a multiple-offense incident, the clearance extends to the incident rather than being treated as an independent clearance for each record fragment. FBI manual, section 3.4.

That mechanism helps explain why raw file counts can be misleading. A download containing one row for each arrestee or offense needs the appropriate identifiers and counting rules before it can support an incident-clearance total.

The same manual states that an incident already cleared by arrest cannot also be cleared exceptionally. The two routes should not be added as though they always described unrelated records without checking the source's method.

Common confusion

Arrest is not conviction. Clearance reporting occurs within the law-enforcement data process; the court's determination is separate.

A cleared incident does not mean every participant was arrested. The reporting milestone can be met through a qualifying arrest of one offender. Additional investigative work may continue.

A closed case does not necessarily have an arrest clearance. Administrative closure and exceptional clearance are separate possibilities with different meanings.

Comparing arrest and clearance totals

Use the same agency, period, offense scope, and counting unit when discussing the relationship. Clearances recorded this year can concern incidents from earlier years. Arrest statistics can also include offenses outside the categories in a particular clearance table.

A clear description names the measure directly: people arrested, incidents cleared by arrest, or offenses cleared. Calling all three “cases solved” removes distinctions that the underlying records preserve.

Sources