Enumerate the duties of the police. Eliminate the duties that are simply guarding private property rights and putting down actions (but I repeat myself). Distribute them to different departments that can actually be trained specifically to deal with different situations. Traffic cops, 9-1-1 call centers, parking enforcement, taking reports on non-viopent crimes (e.g. petty thefts), taking reports on violent crimes, ideally split into appropriate response units or departments (sexual assault responses should not be handled by the pricks that are usually involved), crisis response that includes trained social workers and a separate and properly-trained security contingent where necessary, safety officers that walk around simply observing and helping people out, actively de-escalating any potential conflicts and providing resources to people who need them (imagine an officer that made sure an unhoused person was aware of the resources available to them and would have a follow-up visit by a social worker to get them free housing and other basic rights).
And most importantly, redirect funding into preventative, society-level changes. Reduce the likelihood that someone is in crisis in the first place by making sure they have housing, food, community, and any mental health support needed. Cops are the last responders, not first responders. By the time they can theoretically do anything to help, multiple systems have already failed a person - or were themselves defunded in order to make more room for capitalists and cops.
Also, always remember that when seconds matter, the police are just minutes away. They don't prevent or directly resolve anything bad 99.9% of the time. The bad thing that happened occurred because of how the person doing the bad thing got to that state, because of the social interactions to which we are subjected (that person in that place with that other person), the material conditions that make a given bad action incentivized, and cops didn't do shit to make it better, they're only going to show up and take a report and forget you. More likely, they actively contributed to the bad thing by feeding the mass incarceration system, by helping to create black markets and selective enforcement that parasitize poverty, by making peoples' lives that much worse through harassment and deprivation.
Enumerate the duties of the police. Eliminate the duties that are simply guarding private property rights and putting down actions (but I repeat myself). Distribute them to different departments that can actually be trained specifically to deal with different situations. Traffic cops, 9-1-1 call centers, parking enforcement, taking reports on non-viopent crimes (e.g. petty thefts), taking reports on violent crimes, ideally split into appropriate response units or departments (sexual assault responses should not be handled by the pricks that are usually involved), crisis response that includes trained social workers and a separate and properly-trained security contingent where necessary, safety officers that walk around simply observing and helping people out, actively de-escalating any potential conflicts and providing resources to people who need them (imagine an officer that made sure an unhoused person was aware of the resources available to them and would have a follow-up visit by a social worker to get them free housing and other basic rights).
And most importantly, redirect funding into preventative, society-level changes. Reduce the likelihood that someone is in crisis in the first place by making sure they have housing, food, community, and any mental health support needed. Cops are the last responders, not first responders. By the time they can theoretically do anything to help, multiple systems have already failed a person - or were themselves defunded in order to make more room for capitalists and cops.
Also, always remember that when seconds matter, the police are just minutes away. They don't prevent or directly resolve anything bad 99.9% of the time. The bad thing that happened occurred because of how the person doing the bad thing got to that state, because of the social interactions to which we are subjected (that person in that place with that other person), the material conditions that make a given bad action incentivized, and cops didn't do shit to make it better, they're only going to show up and take a report and forget you. More likely, they actively contributed to the bad thing by feeding the mass incarceration system, by helping to create black markets and selective enforcement that parasitize poverty, by making peoples' lives that much worse through harassment and deprivation.