Two points: You can explain away any data with an argument like that. If you don't have evidence, then there's no evidence of out of control crime.

Except stores have continued to report shrink, not crime stats, this whole time.

That reported number did not go up, which was bad for the narrative they want to push, so the National Retail Federation, the largest lobbying organization for retail who publishes shrink stats for decades has suddenly stopped publishing that stat.