> "The city is rampant with crime, and police needs to crack down on it."
> "Police budgets are bloated, and we need to cut them."
The synthesis of this is that essentially these police are the "government employees" that conservatives keep telling horror stories about: they're unaccountable, overpaid, lazy, and incompetent, but protected by their union. They have their own ideas about which crimes to investigate or not bother with. Because they're not very good at clearup, they prefer situations where the crime comes to them.
The solution is to police the police. Sack those found to be committing abuse of citizens or overtime fraud. Investigate differential clearup rates for crime. Divert some of the money into social services in problem areas. Copy the highly successful Scottish Violence Reduction Unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Reduction_Unit (itself inspired by work in Boston).
> "Police budgets are bloated, and we need to cut them."
The synthesis of this is that essentially these police are the "government employees" that conservatives keep telling horror stories about: they're unaccountable, overpaid, lazy, and incompetent, but protected by their union. They have their own ideas about which crimes to investigate or not bother with. Because they're not very good at clearup, they prefer situations where the crime comes to them.
The solution is to police the police. Sack those found to be committing abuse of citizens or overtime fraud. Investigate differential clearup rates for crime. Divert some of the money into social services in problem areas. Copy the highly successful Scottish Violence Reduction Unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Reduction_Unit (itself inspired by work in Boston).