Yeah, that is probably a factor to some degree. I don't doubt it. But the more salient one probably is the social climate of rapidly increasing public distrust

Yeah, that is probably a factor to some degree. I don't doubt it. But the more salient one probably is the social climate of rapidly increasing public distrust, desperation, not giving a shit about each other in society, the zeitgeist as it were. These kinds of wooly vague things do really matter, you know. For example: Do you remember the 2004 northeastern blackout? Of course you do. A third the US/Canada population was without power for a day or two. Nothing terrible happened, no rioting or anything. A lot of observers were amused, relieved by this, because the last big NYC metro area blackouts in the 1970s immediately triggered severe rioting. And clearly, the zeitgeist was quite different in 2004 than in the "End of Growth" supply-crunched 1970s. Considering how dramatically the national mood was shifted by the pandemic, I would not actually be surprised if the rise in crime was largely caused by that. Another example: Did you know violent crime and rioting are significantly more common in the summer than winter? A statistical fact that goes back a long, long time. I advise not being so quick to dismiss the effects of such things, even if they seem more abstract and less simple to understand. The world isn't simple.