I agree completely. It's obviously more than just changing the name. We should try to have police policing the neighborhood where they live, where they're more likely to know what looks out of place and not get freaked out by something unexpected.

My opinion is the gov't should drastically reduce the number of things that are illegal, decrease prison terms, and increase the number of police officers. When we have laws that over half the people routinely break, it makes people not respect the law in general and not want to have contact with the police. People working with police is the most important thing to reduce crime. Long prison sentences don't do much b/c criminals aren't long-term planners and often don't think they'll get caught.

We need many police officers enforcing a very small number of laws strictly and with no personal leeway.

I would like to see a return to what was once an American staple: the Neighborhood Cop, the Cop On The Beat. These officers not only kept in touch with the community, they became familiar with every detail of daily routine within the area they patrolled. Anything out of the ordinary stood out, and anything that could be criminal activity was noticed. Not to mention that when some thug grabbed a woman's purse or robbed a liquor store, the cop might well be right there to stop him or at least get a good description.

One cannot make that connection or the same observations while driving around in a cruiser.

A small town near me (population 3800) put two officers on bicycles some years ago and had them patrol parks and neighborhoods during warmer months. Loitering, property crimes/vandalism, drug dealing, and thefts/muggings (yes, they happen in small towns) almost vanished, and stayed that way.

A fair number of the low-lifes moved to the next town up the road, which does all of its policing strictly via vehicle. That town is now contemplating a "community policing" program of its own.

I think that in most cases, our local "Peace Officers" are largely that, peace officers. According to a very sage author, Louis L'Amour, it is their presence on our streets that moderate the behavior of most citizens.
Where the difficulty arises is when Federalism crosses into areas that are or were and still should be State's Rights and Sovereignty, in a ridiculous grasp of illegally taken authority by Unconstitutionally Agencies, Committees and Departments. The EPA as initially organized, has no police powers, it still has no legal authority to field or employ these powers and their employment is a vast extension of "Mission Creep." By law the EPA's regulatory actions lie with the State and Federal Courts and Local LEO's.

"The diary reveals that, as far as the late nineteenth-century police were concerned,
the expansion of state powers was not a simple process of centralization at the expense of the individual. Policing helped to expand the role of government, but it did so in ways that were less bureaucratic than personal, less centralized than locally-oriented. The urban police of the late nineteenth century accommodated and served citizens as much as they disciplined them.

Indeed, the police patrolman acted not as an instrument of the upper class, downtown bureaucrats. or the local alderman, but as a versatile official of the neighborhood where he patrolled. Despite the beat cop's formal job requirements, the demands of neighborhood citizens largely shaped the patrolman's actual
tasks. The residents of his beat called upon the policeman most frequently to protect private property. Lower-middle and working-class residents were not victims of police and lower trial court neglect or repression. Instead, just as
Philadelphians resorted to their aldermen, these Bostonians used the patrolman as a mediator and low-level magistrate for the sometimes violent conflicts that arose between them and their neighbors."
"An Officer of the Neighborhood: A Boston Patrolman on the Beat in 1895" by Alexander von Hoffman, in Journal of Social History, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Winter, 1992), pp. 309-330.

That said, however, I can post and link to an original essay by AUGUST VOLLMER, called "the father of professional policing" who pointed out that those beat patrolers were political ward healers who made extra money by shaking down prostitutes.

I agree that we need more Mayberry, but even Mayberry was not always Mayberry. Ever see "In the Heat of the Night"?
Where you from boy?
Philadelphia.
Mississippi?
Pennsylvania.
Virgil, eh? That what they call you in Philadelphia, is it, Virgil?
They call me Mr.Tibbs.

Without romanticizing the past, I do get the point: the police have become militarized.

Also, a subtle consideration, perhaps but the sheriff - Andy Taylor of Mayberry - is ELECTED. The city police are civil service: once hired, never fired.

See my post here linking to "Minimizing the Likelihood of Bad Cops."

When I was young, we had peace officers and they lived where they policed. I knew the local deputy's kids and he knew my father. The officers kept the peace and had a bit of discretion. Today many of the police officers have become revenuers for the state. Here the authorities forced the counties to reassign the patrol areas of the officers hoping to increase revenues and remove discretion from the officers. It is no better than mandatory sentencing... It is like unmarked police cars on traffic duty; the object of which can only be to increase revenues since a visible police car is likely a better deterrent in the first place. So much for serve and protect...