> But I don’t understand why this is a necessary relationship: the political incentives of the police are such that it always makes sense to make crime rates look as bad as possible (since more crime means more police funding). So we’d expect them to continue to make arrests, even if those arrests don’t result in a convictions.

Honestly that doesn't make any sense (I dunno, maybe english is not your primary language).

1. You're correct that it always makes sense for police to make crime rates as bad as possible.

2. $FOO is *NOT RECORDED AS A CRIME* if the apprehended suspect is not convicted.

So your assertion that:

> So we’d expect them to continue to make arrests, even if those arrests don’t result in a convictions.

is completely and totally incorrect in every sense of the word and under even the broadest possible interpretation.

Why would a LEO make (for example) 100 arrests in a week if every single one of them *WOULD NEVER BE RECORDED AS A CRIME* due to prosecution not getting a conviction?

> But that isn’t happening, and nobody has produced a particularly satisfying explanation other than “the cops are depressed.”

I just gave you one now; a guaranteed no-conviction of shoplifters in turn guarantees that LEOs would rather spend their efforts on making their numbers.