I can reduce reported crime rates by simply not doing anything about the crime that is reported for extended periods of time. People understand that reporting does nothing and so they stop bothering to do it.

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.