If you look at the FBI clearance rate for crimes such as murder (which is one of the crimes I mentioned) in recent years, it is better than 60%. Now, have a look at the US Justice Dept. conviction rate and you will see it runs better than 92% overall. I am sure there are other stat sources looking at other data sets, or filtering data down to state, county, city, and even zip codes, that can support most any conclusion desired depending on how obtuse one wants to be.

Seriously, though, did you read the conclusion to my comment? The whole thing was just tongue in cheek anyway.

In the US, the rate of a crime being reported is better than 90% and the conviction rate typically runs between 60% to 70%, depending on the crime. Can you imagine CR had a crime-reporting rate and a conviction rate of just 50%? I know, I know, it will never happen given the disinterest and incompetence on the part of everyone from the legislators, police, on up to the judicial court system, but can you imagine how full the prisons would be then? Costa Rica would have to take over the new national stadium to house all the prisoners. Ooops, I guess Costa Rica cannot do that given somebody forgot to properly engineer the plumbing system to deliver water to the upper floors and somebody else forgot to purchase insurance on the structure, better wait until these issues are addressed first.

All right, let me put on my thinking cap for a moment, OK, I am ready, and here is how we can solve the prison-overcrowding problem. Just do what Chavez did in Venezuela by lower the conviction rate to 6% for major crimes. Right off the top that will cut the long-term prison population by 4%. And, they said we couldn’t cut costs here in Costa Rica! What do they know anyway!