Has there ever actually been a crime wave?

70-90 was a real serious rise and fall of assaults, burglaries, car thefts, etc.

We've had some minor waves during the opium epidemic and the big unemployment waves of '01, '08, '14, and '21.

Or lead in the gasoline that makes people crazy

Lead exposure, the different drug epidemics, big spikes in unemployment. They all contribute.

That said, we also had White Collar crime waves. And these tended to predate the street level crime waves, as the crimes contributed to the conditions of the later.

Nobody in political leadership really talks about the White Collar waves, though.