The entire point of living in a society is that the government maintains a monopoly on force, and therefore can provide security to it's people.
If the government can't enforce its own laws, what the fuck do we pay taxes for?
I'm not even saying pro or against here, that's just the facts of it. Police aren't here to protect you, they've established in court, in fact, that they do not need to intervene in a situation where you're in danger. That they also occasionally do some good for the community (or kill people in cold blood for trivial offenses) is a knock on effect, not the purpose.
Property theft seems like the most-ignored type of crime these days. Police often do little more than fill out a report unless the thief is still there and stole a huge dollar amount. They obviously prioritize violent crime much higher than vandalism.
> the #1 type of theft is actually wage theft
This is a myth. Retail theft is much higher than wage theft.
I'm not talking about what they prioritize, I'm talking about what actually gets solved. How many times have we seen someone chased down and shots fired at them for stealing a couple sodas or something?
Meanwhile, murders, sexual assaults, nothing. Nada. And that's assuming that the perpetrator wasn't themselves a police officer.
> This is a myth. Retail theft is much higher than wage theft.
Not according to everything I've read on the subject: https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo...
Even if the police were perfectly moral and upstanding, relying on them to respond to an incident in real time is just a bad idea. But, if someone broke into my house and I got high res video of their face and license plate, that person would eventually be jailed and I would be able to collect damages from them. Maybe not in LA or NYC, but definitely where I live.
I wasn't really weighing in on the OP, I was weighing in on the person I replied to:
> The entire point of living in a society is that the government maintains a monopoly on force, and therefore can provide security to it's people.
Which is not to say that that NEVER happens but it seems clear the monopoly on force is used as much if not moreso to maintain a status quo that benefits the power structure that wields it. "The sounds of children screaming have been removed" comes to mind, where police are in a place they are needed and resourced appropriately to respond and simply don't, because they don't have to. And the flip-side of that is, you have clear cut cases of people being harassed by cops because they're homeless, or outright killed by them for stealing food because they literally cannot pay for it.
There is absolutely a need in society for a police force, but our current one has demonstrated it's inability to meet that need over and over.