St. Louis, Missouri has seen an increasingly stringent tightening of monetary resources for its police department, a consequence of the movement to reallocate funds traditionally destined to law enforcement. Weighing heavily on the city is the chilling tally of more than 1,000 unresolved murder cases, establishing St. Louis as a consistent contestant in the unfortunate race for being one of America's most perilous urban areas.

During the years 2019 and 2020, a worrying statistic emerged as the city was marked with one of the nation's highest per capita murder rates among major American cities. In the background, another concerning trend rose - the clearance rate of murder investigations was lagging behind the national mean.

Complicating matters further, the city has witnessed a steady erosion of its fiscal resources due to a diminishing tax base and an exodus of residents. This financial strain has far-reaching implications, not least of which is its impact on the prospective improvement of law enforcement infrastructure.

A December report brings to attention the dwindling workforce of the police department. Provisioned for nearly 1,220 officers, the department grapples with over 300 unfulfilled positions. This is a marked contrast compared to the manpower levels in 1998 which boasted over 1,600 active officers.

To underline the fiscal predicament of the city, in 2019, the budget allotted to the homicide division of the police department was slashed for the third time since the year 2012, according to a report by American Public Media.