@Stan Galat posted:All I'm saying is that it's an easy thing to say, "we solve 95% of all car-arsons", but how does anybody really know that none of the hundreds of innocent-looking fires were intentional? I can't say it with certainty and neither can anybody else.
This isn't like a robbery, where everybody knows when a crime has been committed. Nobody has any idea of the actual number of intentionally set car fires, so nobody can know how many people actually get away with it.
"We solve almost all of them" is impossible to prove. It would be just as easy to say that they solve almost none of them. Neither claim can be verified, because nobody knows the actual percentages of intentionally set car fires.
Does "solving" it mean determining that it's an arson fire or determining who set it?
In our county probably 30% of the cars that are stolen are torched. It's easy to determine that the car was stolen and it's a foregone conclusion that it's an arson fire. Of those close to 0% of them are investigated. Car theft is a non-violent property crime and the ensuing arson is an attempt to eliminate the evidence of the car theft. Unless a suspect is identified in the car theft then it won't be investigated.