> But right now, millions of good people, who can’t afford to move to a nice suburb far away from the problem, need cops who are willing to bring that pain, and if that doesn’t work, lock the criminals up until they’re old enough to be docile.
The cops bring that pain indiscriminately. The people who can't move away get it every bit as much as the sociopaths, maybe more so... because unlike the sociopaths, some instinct of theirs is that they should be safe for being innocent, and so do less to avoid interactions with cops.
The cops don't even help much when their attention accidentally falls on the sociopaths. Far from prosecuting and deterring the crimes that impact those "who can't move away", they invariably target drug crimes. Why? Because it's free cash. There are no amounts of cash that are so low that they don't invite civil forfeiture. Or for that matter, no sorts of valuables... jewelry, electronics, just whatever. If the cops only had sailing ships and eyepatches, they'd meet every criteria there is to become classical pirates. (Funny, but civil forfeiture law seems to originate in laws much like the letters of marquee nation-states used to issue...)
They perform no investigations, save those obligated in obvious homicides. None for larceny, petty or gross. Often, they'll only take reports of such things when victims require it for insurance claims, but then only begrudgingly and only because too many accusations of refusing to take reports is likely to stir up shit at the state capitol. They do not patrol, and if you see a car out there that looks like it might be patrolling it's more likely it's just out there trying to ambush someone for that sweet, sweet civil forfeiture money.
For some very vast majority of the public, if the cops disappeared tomorrow, nothing would change at all for better or worse. And that could continue for as long as no one realized they were gone (the panic is what could cause chaos, not the "lack of deterrence" that some would expect).