It should raise questions such as "am I living in a bad neighborhood" or "am I living in a city with more crime than the average" with added caveats such as "just this year", before you jump to asking "is the government and/or mainstream media lying", is what I want to get at.

"Crime has not significantly increased country-wide" and "two severe criminal incidents happened to me or my close friends recently" are in fact not mutually exclusive statements.