They do need to be careful with the "crime" issue. Remember what happened with "defund the police". If they push too hard trump and the repubs. will be happy to say the Dems. don't care about crime so, they need to watch out not to push this too far or it could come back to bite them in the ass.
So this isn’t about crime. It’s about authoritarianism. Look at any number of CONSERVATIVE writings about crime. They say more cops, more courts, more funds. From James Q Wilson to George Will nobody ever said we need the army, even when crime was significantly higher.
If you want to reduce crime (and DC has) I would listen to Wes Moore: popular.info/p/the-secret...