HN seems to think police spend their shift waiting for crimes to happen in front of them.
Some police stations definitely work that way. And some even close their eyes, so they can go on waiting.
It is in the poorer areas, where you could arrest all day long to the point of why bother. Makes sense, if the source of crime is complicated.
No, but when they aren't responding to calls, they spend the rest of their shift going on fishing expeditions.
What do you think traffic cops, for instance, are doing most of their day? What about the cruiser slowly driving through a neighbourhood? They aren't there to respond to a call, they are just running license plates/looking for poorly maintained cars to pull over (Obviously, if someone egregiously breaks traffic rules in front of them, they don't need to look very far - but when nobody's breaking the rules, they can always find someone who looks suspicious.)
The thing is, when you only go on fishing expeditions in poorer neighbourhoods/targeting poorer vehicles, you're going to find that will skew crime statistics - and statistical model based on that will direct even more policing towards those areas.
It's why in the United States, the higher you are on the income ladder, the more illegal drugs you consume - yet the lower you are on the income ladder, the more likely you will end up in prison for drug use.
if policing were just, we'd see many more white-collar crimes like corruption, bribery, embezzlement, fraud, extortion, etc. being busted, because those crimes have much larger impact and wider fallout on communities and wider societies.
The police in their current role only show up at the behest of warrants in those situations to search or arrest.