The last thing you should do is listen to people who "deal with [crime] on a daily basis". They have no exposure to the overall extent of the problem, and are instead exposed to a hyper-concentrated dose of the worst criminals, often by the very nature of the job. Your society could be experiencing an immense and historically unprecedented reduction in crime, and yet the people who deal with criminals as their full-time job will (from their perspective) still see the world as a hive of scum and villainy.