Another way of making Zandar’s point is to ask whether or not anyone would notice if the New York Police Department suddenly reduced its overall arrests by 66% and its issuance of traffic citations by 94%?
And, if not, would it be fair to say the following?
So your brilliant, devious plan is this: you’re going to show the people who believe that the NYPD is full of power-hungry bullies and paramilitary goons what for by displaying to the country exactly how most of the collars you make are in fact wholly unnecessary exercises of petty microagression towards the citizenry you hold in open and rancorous contempt.
Okay then. Go with that plan, guys.
The way I see it, if the police want to do somewhere between six and thirty-four percent of the work they normally do, then we ought to look very closely to see if it makes any discernible difference or not.
And, if it doesn’t, that’s a great argument for drastically reducing the man-hours of the whole department.
I assume they need to issue traffic citations to raise revenue, but it’ll be interesting to see if there are more traffic accidents or complaints about double-parked cars. Will the street cleaners walk off of the job because no one moves their cars on cleaning day?
The cops serve a vital purpose, but that doesn’t mean that most of what they do isn’t just obnoxious busywork that mainly serves to separate poor people from their money.
Let’s test it out.
Reduce arrests by a third and basically stop giving a shit what people do in and with their cars.
We’ll come back in six months and see how it went.
