Being from the UK I didn’t automatically consider them to be armed, but sometimes that is unfortunately necessary if the situation is dangerous enough. Surely you will need armed men in your ideal society also - forces from the outside may attempt to subvert it, and if a crisis emerges, order may break down.

I didn’t say prisons necessarily help people, and I agree with you that if anyone is reformed by prison, it’s in spite of the system. I think of a prison as a way to protect the innocent from dangerous people, but in most cases I disagree with sending non-violent offenders there.

Thanks for the book recommendation. I’d be keen to imagine another way forward, so maybe that’ll help me with some ideas, or at least understand the abolitionist viewpoint. I can see from skim-reading the preface that it attempts to answer many of my questions.

I wasn’t sure if I should introduce such an extreme example as serial killers to my argument and now I see why.

So perhaps let’s talk abstractly:

1. Some people are disruptive whether temporarily or permanently
2. In some cases, we might need to keep those people away from others.
3. If so, you need a place to keep them and,
4. Someone to take them there and,
5. Someone to make sure they don’t leave.

And it’s true that you don’t need police to investigate missing people. You didn’t answer my question though- in your ideal society, if not a police force, who does that job?

I agree that many crimes are only committed out of economic despair. Ideally, everybody has all the resources they need.

Are there not other reasons behind crimes?

For example, what do you do if a serial killer finds themselves in your society? Who would catch them and who would prosecute?

The police also handle other non-crime tasks such as finding missing people. Who would do that?