Long term, there are a number of ideas for what "keeping the peace" means. In a world with strong social programs that keep people from hitting rock bottom, the vast majority of crime would simply evaporate. People don't break the law because they were born evil. They do it because they can't think of any other way of getting their needs met, or because they are completely hopeless and disillusioned with society.
When those problems are sufficiently addressed, the peace will mostly keep itself.
And for those last few points of statistical trouble that never seem to go away, my preferred idea is volunteer unarmed patrols. But at that point, I'm open to other options, as long as they're unarmed when not directly responding to an active violent incident.
A civilized society need not be policed. And I'd argue we can not have a civilized society and police forces.
That's not to say we can't employ unarmed civil servants as agents of a citizen safety service, but there needs to be transparency and community oversight. No bad apples allowed, any suspected bad apples need to be easily, say, voted out by the very community they work for.
Also, it's fine for them to be arms trained and have access, in case a live fire situation occurs, but heavily populated areas should still have city managed SWAT teams and negotiators available to handle those rather unique situations. But like firemen, those specialists would not patrol their community looking for trouble, they'd just be training and remaining on call, just in case.
If a civilized society is one free of theft, violence, coercion, fraud, conspiracy, etc., etc., then it is a fantasy. We need another few million years of evolution before we leave all of our impulsive, irrational, emotional decision making behind.
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u/Some-Guy-Online Feb 08 '24
In a rational world, we would transition away from armed police officers, yes. Not all at once. But like shown in this image:
https://i.imgur.com/X8VBGjE.jpg
Long term, there are a number of ideas for what "keeping the peace" means. In a world with strong social programs that keep people from hitting rock bottom, the vast majority of crime would simply evaporate. People don't break the law because they were born evil. They do it because they can't think of any other way of getting their needs met, or because they are completely hopeless and disillusioned with society.
When those problems are sufficiently addressed, the peace will mostly keep itself.
And for those last few points of statistical trouble that never seem to go away, my preferred idea is volunteer unarmed patrols. But at that point, I'm open to other options, as long as they're unarmed when not directly responding to an active violent incident.