In addition, DNA specialists who study forensic evidence at crime scenes would receive more intensive training, and the Secret Service would be asked to help retrieve phone records more quickly.
The homicide squads will receive the extra resources for 18 months. Then, analysts plan to compare the department’s clearance rate - the proportion of cases in which a suspect is arrested or identified in an arrest warrant - to previous years. They will also compare Boston’s success rate to that of other cities to determine whether the additional manpower helped investigators close more cases more rapidly.
If the clearance rate rises, the department would continue using the extra resources.
“For the next year we’re going to be really focused on the issue of shootings and homicides,’’ Commissioner Edward F. Davis said in interview. “I really want to try and work on holding people accountable for it.’’
The city is launching the initiative amid a dip in overall violent crime.
Compared with 2010, major crime in Boston dropped 8 percent this year, and killings fell 14 percent, according to preliminary figures from police on Dec. 26. the most recent data available.
But the murder-clearance rate continued to stagnate: Boston police solved 23 of the 62 homicides, or 37 percent, that occurred in 2011. The national average usually hovers at more than 60 percent.
Meanwhile, the number of nonfatal shootings dipped slightly in 2011 to 260, from 263 in 2010, an especially violent year. Department officials said they were unable to provide the clearance rate for shootings.
The latest effort to improve the city’s clearance rate does not have a budget yet, but Davis said the department would dip into $2 million saved in 2010 through reductions in overtime to cover the costs. A $500,000 grant from the Department of Justice will bolster the effort.
It is not the first time the department has sought to strengthen the homicide unit.
In 2007, shortly after Davis became commissioner, he beefed up the unit to 25 detectives and added two more detectives to the cold case squad, for a total of three. He has replaced the deputy superintendent in charge of the unit three times.
