Yep - not u common in my shitass city these days for a couple cops to be posted at the doors of safeway, walmart, etc. full time. Me getting mugged by 5 tweakers in broad daylight? 8 hour response time. Homeless dude stealing bread to survive? Immediately arrested.

Meanwhile the police force complains that they need more money because they don't have enough resources to do their jobs... full 1/3rd of our civic budget already. Totally fucking useless, unless you're a big brand.

They're also not smart. The amount of work that goes into tracking target vehicles, syncing fake keyfobs, loading them into sea containers, and sending them on an international shipment to an overseas client in incredibe. This isn't being done by idiots. I can't imagine someone who got C's in highschool figuring out how it works or finding a way to stop it.

The police exist to maintain the state's "monopoly on violence". Their core function is to do violence against members of a state on behalf of that state; the police are the only people with the power to wield that violence. Everything else the police do is just PR and authority creep.

They should be stripped down to their minimum function of hurting people. People SHOULD be afraid when they see the police. People SHOULD think that nothing good can come to them from interacting with the police. All other functions should be moved to people without the power of violence.

It's clear that some police are with me on this idea. The rest can be retrained as social workers so they can do the rest of the job we currently use police for.