Statistics question

Assume you want to do a study to examine the relationship of defunding the police and violent crime rates.

1. What are your research questions?

The research questions I had for a study to examine the role of defunding the police and its correlation to violent crime rates would be:

1. "Is there more or less violent crime when funding is reallocated [defunded] from Police Departments?"
2. Is there a difference in violent crime rates between cities that have "defunded" the police versus cities that have not?

The independent variable would be the police department being "funded or defunded" in each location. The dependent variable would be the violent crime rate per month in each city inthe overall dataset. Are there other variables to consider? Did I get the dependent variable and independent variable correct? I mix them up all the time