It’s an incredibly perverse tactic: reclassify crime, disincentive people from reporting it, disempower police from dealing with it… and then tout this as a reduction in crime levels and a win. Pathetic.
I think HBO made a 5-season show about this, quite popular, had a name like "the string" or "rope" or something.
The Wire. Ok, I'm actually curious did you really not remember the name but the did know the number of seasons, and it was something like rope/string?
I just thought it would be funny if someone watched The Wire, internalized its message (which is pretty succinctly put in the GGP comment) and forgot its name. It felt more substantive than commenting "oh, that's the Wire!"
That is an unreasonably cynical take on what is happening. Reporting and tracking is always imperfect, but just to point out one improvement the 311 system greatly improved reporting. Getting the most out of police without giving into oppression is never simple, and our incarceration spree has gone beyond what we can actually afford. Sitting back and being angry and playing blame games is not going to get us out of this.