The world makes a lot more sense when you realize the government is basically a gang. The majority of law enforcement/military action falls into a few buckets:

1) Farming the tax cattle (ex: speeding tickets)

2) Tracking down and punishing “foxes in the hen house” who disrupt their tax cattle (ex: a murderer easily destroys $1M in taxes per tax cow killed, gotta stop that)

3) Turf wars vs other gangs who would usurp their role as farmer