[dragonwriter]

> The metric we should look at is not GDP per capita (which is how the U.S. bears similarity to Europe), it is crime.

A major contention of the defund/dismantle movement is that the US prioritization of paramilitary law enforcement for local funding exacerbates the social problems that create crime, even if you don't count crime-by-police.

[alehul]

Total U.S. police spending is around $100 billion, which is around $285/person/year.

Considering over 240 million 911 calls are placed in a given year, at a surface level this feels extremely efficient — certainly more so than other parts of our bureaucracy.

Crime occurs for social, cultural, and/or financial reasons — focusing on the financial, we have a giant bureaucratic and inefficient government, an incredibly large population, and a lot of waste. I don't think one could argue the $24/person/month we pay for police would make a substantial difference / stop a ton of crime.

[zimpenfish]

https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative... has it at $115B for 2017 with another $79B for "corrections" (which you can debate whether it's "police spending".)

I should imagine it's gone up since then?

> Considering over 240 million 911 calls are placed in a given year

But if you cut the police spending by, say, 50% and used that money instead to providing social services, mental health services, etc., how many of those 911 calls go away?