In 2006 the city had the highest murder rate in the nation at 72.6 per 100,000. Gary, Indiana, was a distant number two, with 48.3 per 100,000. Of the 162 willful killings that year, only a third were followed by arrests, which had thus far led to very few convictions. Nearly 3,000 suspected felons were released automatically by state law simply because the district attorney and his overburdened assistants had not charged them within the allotted sixty days, sometimes for lack of evidence from the police.
