In my childhood, I was in an area with so-called community-policing (not in the US). It was a living nightmare. Our family was glad to get out of the area.
Even knowing that US police are harsh and trigger-happy, I find it deeply amusing that first world citizens protected by the world's strongest military will talk about community policing.
Pass laws to reform the police. Abolishing them will just ensure that power hungry and petty tyrants fill the void. And these folks will happily beat and murder any and all who act against them, tax/toll all economic opportunities (roads/bridges/vendors, etc), keep the local politician and bureaucrats in their pocket, assault/abuse any woman on the streets - and no-one will dare to report anything.
You haven't added any reasoning or even anecdotal evidence to the discussion, only that you had a "living nightmare" experience, and then you went on to fantasize about some dystopia and why our only option is to pass reforms.
The police aren't following the laws now. Why would you think that adding laws would make them follow the existing ones? Police reform isn't the only tool we have available, and it feels very silly to hear people continue pounding the reform drum in 2020.
Not really a discussion for HN. I can't offer you any evidence. This was in the 80s in a somewhat backward region in a specific state in India ruled by "Panchayat" when I was a child far before the advent of the cellphone. There is no evidence apart from the memory of a lot of beatings. My sister getting assaulted. Folks going missing. And frightened shopkeepers.
Of-course things are far different today since someone or the other carries a cellphone and in modern India, law and order has far improved - thanks to more effective policing and prosecution. (Still have a long way to go)
You are a protected first world citizen. I suspect you will need to learn for yourself what living without the police means. I assure you there is no fantasy "dystopia" made up here. There are real consequences to not having an armed force enforcing the law.
Can do all sorts of things, but when somebody turns up with a gun there has to be some physical mechanism to stop them from seizing control of the local supermarket.
The city can defund the entire police force, but it will have to set up or allow an alternative which will end up the same as the current one if the incentives don't change. Resetting the entire system every time something goes wrong isn't really a viable strategy. It'll work every so often.
If someone takes a bunch of hostages then we need people who can de-escalate and rescue them, but that isn't what most cops spend their time doing every day.
Not if it means you can't pay officers their salaries, and those salaries are protected by a collective bargaining agreement. Now the city is in violation of a contract and is going to end up paying more in litigation costs plus punitive penalties. That's the difference between "technically can" and "can, but will open up the municipality to so much liability it probably constitutes gross negligence on the part of anyone who votes for it."
