You cannot replace the police with social programs. What are you going to do when somebody breaks into your house, assaults you, robs you, kills someone? Call your social worker?
Canada had an experiment of removing policing for just one day. It did not go well at all.
> Police were motivated to strike because of difficult working conditions caused by disarming FLQ-planted bombs
Montreal in 1969 was on the brink of civil war. The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was basically the Canadian version of the IRA. Having police on the streets wasn't enough. The situation continued to escalate until the Canadian Armed Forces were deployed to police Montreal in 1970.
I don't think that time and place is representative of any Canadian city today. As such, it's rather hard to draw any conclusions from your example.
What are the police going to do? You’re already robbed/dead.
Police abolition is asking for a change to the socioeconomic systems that lead people to rob in the first place. The threat of police locking you up surely isn’t doing it.
Maybe. Yet this crime still happened, in spite of all the perps got arrested before.
> Or maybe they will get to you in time
Unlikely.
> Because the criminals keep getting released, especially for political reasons.
Like most states, NY, IL, and WA have each eliminated parole for violent offenders, so that’s not it.
You’re going to have to be more specific with your stats. Crime rates continue to decrease in those cities - even in Chicago. The 2016 spike in homicides is an interesting topic if you care learn the driving forces behind it. There wasn’t a mass release of criminals as you suggest, but there was a series of gun laws invalidated by the courts.
Strange that in all those NYC/Chicago links, none of the police quoted blamed the surge on the release of criminals from prison, a lack of policing, or a lack of police resources.
Canada had an experiment of removing policing for just one day. It did not go well at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot