“Crime is down in many cities because they refuse to report them. Nashville is a good example, where the official policy is to under report crime to make it seem safer Anyone who really believes that crime has gone away is deluded.”
Yea, but it’s hard not to report murders...
You also need to take into account people’s changing behaviours.
Let’s say there’s a neighbourhood where people get mugged a lot by the ruling gangs. If people stop going there, the muggings will drop and statistics will say the neighbourhood is safer. Of course, in reality the same gangs are still there and it is just as dangerous a place to visit. Statistics alone often don’t tell the real tale of societal collapse.