Just saw an interview on Ananpour with Danielle Allen talking about policing, etc. Wasn't paying that much attention, but caught her mentioning changing our first responders. That seems to be a popular liberal interpretation of "defund the police"--where currently police are our first responders for 911 calls (at least that's our perception, the EMTs and fire might disagree), a "generalist" model, instead we should separate different types of problems and have "specialists" for each. For example, social workers, social psychologists, traffic wardens, etc.
The logic is that police, being armed, resort too often to violence where a softer, gentler approach would avoid the tragedies.
I like the idea, but my contrarian streak also offers a caution"
America is a heavily-armed society. If a jurisdiction is able to set up such a system, the likelihood is sometime they will have one of their "specialists" will be killed by someone with a gun (or knife). When that happens, there will be a popular uproar and demands to arm the specialists, or shift responsibility back towards the police.
There's always tradeoffs. TANSTAAFL
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