Your assumptions are incorrect: felony prosecution is not outside local control, and police politics are irrelevant.
How many times a PD arrests a criminal then a judge later releases? That criminal with 30-year history would never be free if judged in a rural county instead of urban NYC or Charlotte.
The real drivers are prosecutorial policies driven by political priorities.
And we all know that who sides with criminals most of the time are the Democrats.
> Your assumptions are incorrect: felony prosecution is not outside local control, and police politics are irrelevant.
Felony prosecution is done by DAs, which are subservient to the state.
Police politics is completely relevant, because they prioritize enforcement and have incredible leeway in its execution.
> The real drivers are prosecutorial policies driven by political priorities.
Those policies are ultimately set at the state level, because that's who DAs are accountable to.
> And we all know that who sides with criminals most of the time are the Democrats.
Is that why the Republican party has elected a convicted felon to lead it?