All of these arguments over crime rates and policing remind me a lot of The Wire, especially Season 3. For those who haven't watched it, it deep dives into the relationship between crime on the street and the high-level political maneuvering to which those crimes are merely an inconvenience, not a problem that needs fixing. Lots of pressure from folks at the top of city government to reduce numbers, rather than fixing the issues. And the frustration at the bottom of that pile, when everyday police officers realize they can't fix structural problems.
Makes me wonder what happened to make US cities so much better in the 2010s. Is it just a prosperity thing related to tech wealth? Because it feels like these exact issues were a huge problem in the 90s, and they somehow got better for a decade and a half before covid brought them back worse than ever.