Change Can Be Bad! But Reform Is Always Good.

I think our municipal police forces need to be reorganized, streamlined, and centralized. They all need to be writing tickets and citing criminals against the same set of laws, and they all need to be reporting to the same Chief: who would be called the President of the United States.

And why not? He's the Commander in Chief of the Military, isn't he? And what are our police forces, but a peacekeeping force employing (basically) paramilitary tactics in order to control order? The reform I propose would be one more way to bring everything into line, and make it not only more efficient, but far more effective.

Our new national police force would be more like Switzerland: absolutely impartial. Absolutely neutral. "Police Neutrality," right? That has a good ring to it! Our new national police force should also be more like journalism, observing a policy of strict non-interference. There would be a code of professional ethics that would require it. Rather than interfering with criminals, the police would simply observe and report. The criminals would be duly noted, and then justice would take its proper course in due time. This would ensure that no one's rights would be violated prior to due process.

There would be a separate branch that would handle it from there: the United States Arresting Officers Corps. These guys would be bad-ass. It's like a whole different division! All they would do is arrest criminals. (Again: major improvement in efficiency). One of their crack operatives would be played by Christian Bale, and every single officer would be expected to evince that same high level of emotionless and impartial precision heroism. This would ensure a very high standard of excellence among the entire Corps - thus keeping morale high.

The result of these reforms would be that crime would be very nearly eliminated. There would be an almost complete improvement in societal decency and happiness, and a sense of serene justice prevalent in society at large - but at the cost of something essential that would be missing, something that maybe most people might not even notice, but it would be really crucial and necessary on a human level - and the rest of what happens could be a sort of meditation on the consequences of that.

I believe this is the only way our current justice system can be improved. It's time to suck it up, quit making excuses, and do what needs to be done. Step 1?

Centralize.