The answer is the media.

The thing is, I don't feel less safe walking down the street. I can't really relate to people who do. That drives the divide further.

My ex spouse got an app that gave alerts every time there was anything going down in our neighborhood. They went from cautious to walk around at night to "omg we live in a crime riddled hellhole with people being murdered everywhere" and stopped going outside. People now have access to so much information, often explicitly designed to make you fearful, and we suck at statistics

Assuming the statements are correct, maybe it's because people feel less safe. Fewer people go outside which results in fewer crimes being committed.

Police staffing has been going down since black lives matter became a thing. They dont get the same unquestioned respect and love like they used too so no one wants to be a cop any more. This one doesn't give years but it says 5% over the last couple years. The change is bigger in larger more liberal cities. Chicago is down 13% since 2018 , san francisco which inspired this meme is down 20% since 2017 and all the mayoral candidates are falling over themselves to say they'll solve it even though crime is down.

Or maybe that fewer police = fewer crimes being caught and tracked for statistic purposes

...and if they can day that with a straight face, give them an Oscar!

(I say this as a kiwi looking from afar)

Not saying less cops = less crime, just debunking the classic thin blue line narrative of less cops = more crime

You could maybe argue that if the drop was only in small petty crime. Yeah a shopkeeper may stop reporting shoplifting after the 10th time the police don't respond. That under reporting goes down as the crime gets more serious. Your probably going to report a home break in to the cops even if you know they won't do anything since you're going to need a police report for insurance, home break ins have been steadily declining since 2018 when the police staffing "problem" started. This seriousness holds very true for murders which have dropped 12% over the past year

That's assuming the victims would be under reporting, if you're saying the police departments, government etc. Are under reporting then that's getting into conspiracy territory. Especially because we're seeing this trend reported across the nation so the conspiracy would have to be massive.

Also if the government had the ability to do this why would they start now? This idea isn't too complex so someone could have easily come up with it and started doing it a while ago. If that were the case we'd never see crime rates go up as the politicians would just under report every year and make it look like crime is going down. But we have seen reported crime go up, noticeably in 2022 , and instead of hiding that many politicians and police departments showcased it as a reason to Crack down on crime and increase there budgets.