According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, in 2017, of the 1,247,321 violent crimes reported to police, 45.6 percent were cleared by arrest or exceptional means. Of the 7,694,086 property crime offenses reported to police in 2017, only 17.6 percent were cleared by arrest or exceptional means.

"In the UCR Program, a law enforcement agency reports that an offense is cleared by arrest, or solved for crime reporting purposes, when three specific conditions have been met. The three conditions are that at least one person has been:

"• Arrested.
"• Charged with the commission of the offense.
"• Turned over to the court for prosecution (whether following arrest, courtsummons, or police notice).

In 2018, law enforcement agencies in the US made an estimated 10,310,960 arrests for all offenses, of which 1,654,282 were drug arrests.