I know how police forces work because we contract to some of them.
The amount of funding required to investigate a crime is huge; where does that come from?
With multiple, competing, courts/police this becomes an expensive problem. It is infeasible to expect the suspect or victim to ultimately pay - for example any reasonable digital forensics investigation will cost the better part of £30,000 from seizure to court. And that is a lower bound.
Setting up a lab is non-trivial and costs millions - so either lab work has to be centralised or the funds would have to be found to pay for new ones. The former option isn't really an option, because you could end up in the problematic situation of two courts relying on the same lab for results in the same case (and calling the same people in as their expert witnesses...). This compromises the experts.
> Most people have some community resources they can access in time of need. If they have nothing at all, then they are screwed. But it's the same way under a monopoly of force.
I'm afraid this is impractical. Even reporting a simple robbery can be expensive for the police force (sending out an officer, sending our a scenes of crimes guy, doing at least the basic legwork to try and find the culprit).
In addition, one of the key roles of the police is as a deterrent. Who is going to drive down your road a couple of times if you notice a suspicious looking person hanging around?
Whilst I do "get" your theory and think that in a perfect world it would be interesting to explore. In practice it strikes me as more likely to satisfy the political ethos of anarcho-capitalism than actually help the public.
I know how police forces work because we contract to some of them.
The amount of funding required to investigate a crime is huge; where does that come from?
With multiple, competing, courts/police this becomes an expensive problem. It is infeasible to expect the suspect or victim to ultimately pay - for example any reasonable digital forensics investigation will cost the better part of £30,000 from seizure to court. And that is a lower bound.
Setting up a lab is non-trivial and costs millions - so either lab work has to be centralised or the funds would have to be found to pay for new ones. The former option isn't really an option, because you could end up in the problematic situation of two courts relying on the same lab for results in the same case (and calling the same people in as their expert witnesses...). This compromises the experts.
> Most people have some community resources they can access in time of need. If they have nothing at all, then they are screwed. But it's the same way under a monopoly of force.
I'm afraid this is impractical. Even reporting a simple robbery can be expensive for the police force (sending out an officer, sending our a scenes of crimes guy, doing at least the basic legwork to try and find the culprit).
In addition, one of the key roles of the police is as a deterrent. Who is going to drive down your road a couple of times if you notice a suspicious looking person hanging around?
Whilst I do "get" your theory and think that in a perfect world it would be interesting to explore. In practice it strikes me as more likely to satisfy the political ethos of anarcho-capitalism than actually help the public.