Just because the original policing tactic that spawned this thread is abhorrent doesn't mean we can't discuss other possibilities here.

More on-foot friendly patrols (which should be perfectly doable given much higher density in cities), for example. Or maybe police actually trying to catch actual criminals instead of just acting like insurance agents.

Here's what happens: Voters vote for someone who says they will do this thing "more on-foot friendly patrols", "catch actual criminals". Police obviously continue what they've always been doing and stop & frisk, harass minorities, etc, because that's generally what happens when you stuff poor neighborhoods full of cops from a completely different background to the community they are policing. Everyone pretends this is not what is happening until some particularly blatant instance brings it to light.

Turning up the pressure to catch stupid, small crimes while letting actual large problems (like consistent theft of wages that outnumbers money lost to robbery 3 to 1) will lead to stupid solutions.

Okay, so voting like that won't lead to friendly patrols. That doesn't mean friendly patrols are a bad idea.

> friendly patrols are a bad idea.

Absolutely and I think there are models of policing that reduce petty crime and obviously people would rather have less petty crime than more. We are all in agreement here.

I just want people to be aware that the policing of their imagination is not always the policing of reality and oftentimes what your gut instinct tells you might work will have pretty large and distorted negative impacts.

I really do think we're all on the same side here. Nobody likes crime and nobody likes police excess. The problem is just that sometimes where we grew up and what experiences we've had can lead us to underestimate one impact and overestimate another.