IMO there is data and then there is reality. Both do not always match.
The main culprit is that most peopke don’t know what the data actually means. There can be 1,000 murders and it goes down to 900, that is a drop of 10%. That’s a very remarkable drop, in fact something to be proud.
Many Joes have no clue what that means because they will focus on what they see and hear. To them the drop in murders must be a lie since they perceive it to be the same. Somehow it doesn’t registers in their minds that if murders drop 10% from a 1,000; that means 900 murders are still occuring. The many Joes with perceive murders to decrease after many consecutive drops, except that when they think murders are beginning to fall (based on seeing and hearing), in reality it has been falling for a while.
Most people are bad at math, more so in the DR where the average person can’t do simple math without a calculator.