A lot of crimes are not reported. If your home or car are buglarized and you don’t have insurance, why should you call the police?
But the question is whether there has been any differential change in that fact. If the propensity to report remains constant, then any drop in reported crime is real. If anything, a real drop in crime should increase the ability of police to repond, and lead to more reporting.
“A lot of crimes are not reported. If your home or car are buglarized and you don’t have insurance, why should you call the police?”
I imagine a lot of Rural crime, which is far from law enforcement and the ears of neighbors, goes unreported. Especially those incidents which were favorably resolved by the armed potential victims; Crime is not reported, criminal is eliminated and resulting in less crime.