And peoples' personal experiences very likely might not be an indicator of society or even the community as a whole.
Back in the spring of 2001, Cincinnati was embroiled in horrible race riots after the cops there shot an unarmed black man. It was so bad that for a good bit, the city ended up imposing a nightly curfew. Fast forward to the end of August 2001 and I was hanging out at some bars with my brother and some friends. My brother gets separated from the group, runs into the wrong guys and just absolutely gets the crap kicked out of him. I distinctly remember visiting him in the hospital and reading an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer talking about the crime rates falling and normalizing from the high in the spring.
Two things were true that day. Yes, my brother had just experienced the worst crime and violence he ever experienced, but as a whole crime and violence in Cincinnati was going down.
I didn't blame George W. Bush for blindly following any type of policy, nor did I point to my circumstantial/anecdotal evidence that the Enquirer was covering up some grand political agenda.