[taborj]

Not sure if this was your point, but you just made a case for keeping the funding. Funding went up between 1993 to today, and crime went down by 50k reports per year, even as the population increased. Read another way, funding doubled, while crime reports were cut by more than half, even though the population went up by 15%.

I know this is potentially a case of correlation doesn't equal causation, but if your goal is to argue against police budgets, these aren't the numbers to use.

> The real-dollar cost per crime reported has gone up more than 5x.

Yes, but that's a terrible way to look at something. You're not trying to reduce the cost per crime reported; you're trying to reduce the crime reported itself. That's going to take more money to accomplish, so the cost per crime going up is a good thing. It means you're getting good value for money.

EDIT: Doing some simple math, the cost per crime today is way less than the cost per crime back in 1993, according to your numbers. Drastically less.

(for the record, I don't know enough about this whole situation to have an informed opinion; my gut feeling is reducing the funding of your peacekeeping force by drastic amounts in a short time frame during a time of unrest is perhaps not wise)