Arrests are not necessary in the vast majority of situations police are called for, and recording technology is far superior to verbal testimony for serving our courts
EDIT: the ignorant people claiming average police officer does not deal with violent criminals have obviously never worked as a first responder. They deal with rape, suicide, murder, assault, domestic abuse, robbery, every week unless they're some small town cop in a gilded neighborhood.
The cops in St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, NYC, etc, see it every single day.
I hear a lot of suggestions by people have have never done the job. People making spurious claims about what police do and don't deal with on a daily basis.
I would never support female cops without firearms, for example. A grown man can easily overpower any woman, period. Especially when they are tweaked out on drugs.
Cops carry a gun because they have less than 6 seconds to respond to deadly situations that can save lives.
Sure, send armed cops to handle situations that force is likely to needed. But cops don't need guns to take down police reports. Rape victims don't need armed officers to take down police reports. Property crime victims don't need armed officers to take down police reports. Officers do not need to be armed to write speeding tickets or DUIs.
The primary role of police is observation, recording of facts and interacting with the community. 90+% of the time they spend serving society do not require force.
We could spend much less on police and have better trained cops when force is actually needed by not even considering arming the half of cops who respond to situations where force is unnecessary. The unarmed cops can cost less because they don't need firearms training and job would be less mentally taxing so they could be paid less: then, they can call in armed cops for the minority of situations where force is necessary.
Only give guns to the best cops: the bar to become a cop is way too low to continue arming all of them. I'd love to see a tiered system where cops have to be continually tested and trained to prove they should be entrusted with various levels of force: ex. Camera -> Authorization to use force in arrests -> Pepper Spray -> Stun Gun -> Firearms
Watch some episodes of actual police incidents. Drunk people can be armed. Domestically abused people can live in dangerous neighborhoods with gangs present. Sorry, a camera is not going to defend you from the Latin Kings.
Violent criminals do not care about your unicorn ideals. If they sense police are nerfed, they will fill that power vacuum with gang violence and drive out the police.
You tell me why Ciudad Juarez is one of the most dangerous cities in the world but El Paso, directly across the U.S.-Mexico border is relatively safe. That's policing.
Lol, it's not because police are engaging in shoot-outs with the cartel. It's because we have a judicial system that will not stop going after you, and that is all done non-violently.