The United States Is Still Under-Policed and Over-Imprisoned
&gt; Shifting to more police and less imprisonment could reduce crime and improve policing. More police and less imprisonment also has the advantage of being a feasible policy. Large majorities of blacks, hispanics and whites support hiring more police. “Tough on crime” can be interpreted as greater certainty of punishment and with greater certainty of punishment we can safely reduce punishment levels.<p>This conclusion is questionable. While the data seems to suggest we have an astonishingly high imprisonment and recidivism rate I don&#x27;t think the thinly veiled &quot;abolish the police&quot; argument, coupled with it&#x27;s typical race-based arguments, will solve anything.<p>We can really, truly, improve an unfortunate necessity of society by a few things in my estimation:<p>1. Regular psychological evaluation for police and yearly training on de-escalation coupled with firearms training. Additional scrutiny for people with previous experience in combat roles in the military. Lack of sufficient firearms qualification should prevent you from carrying a firearm under qualified immunity, additional PT should be done every 6 months and two failures removes you from the force.<p>2. Removal of most of qualified immunity. Your job was never &quot;get home safe&quot;.<p>3. Defang the police union which by-and-large is how police get away with murder. Force police to carry malpractice insurance instead (value &gt; 1MM).<p>4. Disincentivize crime hunting as a method of police keeping their job. For example, your next review at the precinct won&#x27;t look so good unless you have N number of arrests. This can be done either by punishing police for over-policing, or changing laws that are designed to imprison people for trivialities (minor drug charges, child support, etc).<p>5. De-militarization of the police and a return back to the &quot;old&quot; times. Police should walk the beat and mingle with the people. As it stands now they drive around in veritable IFVs with more weaponry than is even close to reasonable for their day to day job. Right now they are closer to UN peacekeepers than civil servants.<p>6. Undoing Castle Rock v. Gonzales which allows police to not have any duty to defend.<p>7. Most importantly, seriously scrutinize the roles and motivations of DAs and their relationship with judges who are responsible for perpetuating the majority of non-violent crimes that put people in prison for decades.<p>Of course none of this will ever happen because the true purpose of the police is compliance and control, not safety. If you don&#x27;t believe me think really hard about how comfortable you are talking to the police, and then think about how comfortable you are talking to a firefighter. The police are simply the meat enforcers of The State and so any desire to change them is simply wishful thinking. Even the military is nicer to citizens in an occupied country than the police are to their own countrymen. It&#x27;s frankly shocking.