The town I grew up in probably has ten times the police force it had during the 50s and it is the same population.
They should just install 8" thick, see-through, bullet proof glass cages for everyone.
I remember once when the cops in Steubenville, Ohio went on strike. You haven’t seen as many armed citizens this side of a John Wayne movie.
The answer has been "Regalionalization" where the Makers have to pay for the Takers no matter how far away they move. For example, the residents of Camden, NJ could not sustain their own police force so it was disbanded and a new county-wide police was created, paid for by the suburbs but mostly used in the city.
The other solution is to disperse the Takers to smaller cities and towns so all the Makers across the country can share the burden. For example, tens of thousands of Chicago ghetto dwellers have been shipped at great expense to Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Iowa, and downstate Illinois, where they are provided for by the local taxpayer.
These solutions are also known as Communism.
How about this to deal with a police shortage: stop hypercriminalizing human behavior, and treating every supposed moral violation as a crime against society. First, stop prosecuting people for drug possession or even drug trafficking (first things first). That alone will clear the caseload for a lot of cops. Second, stop prosecuting people for relatively benign first offenses (not every drunken fight between two guys at a bar has to be prosecuted). Third, stop prosecuting people for selling non-pasteurized milk or who are violating some other so-called safety or labeling statute when the buyer is fully informed and consenting to said purchase. That’s just a start but you get the point!
