[ebuchanan]

How often does your scenario happen?

If often, then there's a market for it.

If not often, then you're intentionally using a red herring to distract from the real discussion.

[donmcronald]

That was a huge problem in NYC subways around the 80s and the policing strategies for dealing with it were the origins of CompStat. It’s not a red herring because as soon as you make 1 on 1 mugging impractical the criminals will adapt and start using different strategies.

The value in a publicly funded police force is that they don’t have to worry about the economic viability of their countermeasures.