zlacker

> I do want them to behave like they are part of the neighborhood and not its enforcers.

People have been saying this for decades and decades. It doesn't work. How long does it have to not work before you accept that we need another strategy?

>>coldpi+(OP)
I'm interested any realistic solution to a social problem. Eliminating police departments isn't one of them; it's fantasy virtue-signaling by people who are lucky enough to have never experienced first-hand what happens in societies without law enforcement.

>>23B1+U3
I don't think there are very many people out there proposing eliminating police departments. Most calls are for reducing funding from the police to reduce their ability to cause harm, and spending more on other activities that are better at reducing crime. Broadly this is called "defunding the police," though I do understand why you dislike that label.

"Abolish the police" is a different, and I suspect much smaller, movement.

>>coldpi+vo3
Sorry, I'm not trying to be pedantic but the literal definition of "defund" is as follows:

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng... - " to stop providing money for something, especially something official"

which is the same as:

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/ame... - "to officially end a law, a system, or an institution"

You can see where if you and I are having this conversation, probably there's a lot of other people like you and I who are talking past each other because the word is being either incorrectly deployed by proponents – or the proponents genuinely want to eliminate police departments.