This doesn't really seem relevant, nor does it seem credible that only Democrats are ever tempted to use trickery to make crime rates seem better than they are.
The same is possible in other contexts like crime stats. You can avoid crime data collection by creating friction in reporting crimes. Or change incentives to report crime by not doing anything with reports. Or not submit data to places that collect it. And so on.
I’m not saying “only democrats” either - they aren’t - but it’s a common issue in blue cities that have obvious crime issues despite government PR about crime rates.
Except that we get crime data from two sources. We get them from actual reports of crime to the police and also from the crime survey, which just asks people if they have been the victim of various crimes. These would diverge if the former numbers were being juked.