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Combine the Police and Mail Service

Grind agencies and pour synergy into them
  (+4)
(+4)
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against]

Benefits: citizenry will see their police officers more often, leading to a more integrated and trusting society that isn't so frightened of the cops. Potential of cost benefits with administrative redundancy, offices, some vehicles. Warrant delivery efficiency. <Ding dong> "Here's your mail, and a warrant to search the premises..." More seamlessness between police agencies in different locales.

Drawbacks: delivery of the mail may suffer when there's a call, shooting, etc...
Not a lot of synergy between mail sorting and delivery and criminal investigation.

Complications: the mail service is federal, while the police are local. Localizing the mail service seems easy enough.

Okay, maybe just have the cops wear USPS uniforms...?

RayfordSteele, Aug 21 2020

Bus-mounted mailbox Bus-mounted_20mailbox
Alternative [8th of 7, Aug 21 2020]

The Invisible Man http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/204
Why postal workers have an advantage that the police don't. [8th of 7, Aug 21 2020]

Elegy in a Country Courtyard https://www.poetryf...a-country-courtyard
As true today as it's always been. [8th of 7, Aug 22 2020]

The politics going postal https://t.co/g8kiqYajDj
How they've gutted it for years [RayfordSteele, Aug 24 2020]

[link]






       I'm curious as to what the arrest of Steve Bannon looked like. Did a mail delivery truck drive onto the dock by, a bunch of goons jump out the back, make their way onto the yacht promising a signed package, stuff him into a mail bag, toss him in the back, and drive off?
RayfordSteele, Aug 21 2020
  

       I imagine there was a black submarine involved, as well.
FlyingToaster, Aug 21 2020
  

       I've read all of Chesterton's mysteries. I don't recommend doing that. He starts out good enough but the later ones get all preachy.
RayfordSteele, Aug 22 2020
  

       My son's a police officer, I'll ask him what he thinks of the idea but I'm guessing he wont' be too crazy about it.   

       What about flipping it and having postmen be armed? Although I guess that's no different than your idea, just a different uniform.   

       Maybe the SWAT teams could double as special delivery services. They do the fast deployment thing.   

       [+] anyway. I know you're at least partially kidding but expanding on some synergy between the two services wouldn't be a bad thing no?
doctorremulac3, Aug 22 2020
  

       Extrapolating, in reaching for a perfect society, everyone has a bit of knowledge of each service with enough per area and mobile professionals as society needs.   

       This would be good at giving a constant named human face for people and some serious local knowledge for the police.   

       [+] from me but I don't think our societies are evolved enough for this yet.
wjt, Aug 22 2020
  

       Sorry, you were out when we called. You can collect the remains of your front door from the depot between 10:00 and 10:15 tomorrow.
pertinax, Aug 22 2020
  

       Police are massively overworked. Even if this involved hiring enough cops to bring them back up to massively overworked despite deliveries, everyone would blame the delivery duties for the state of things.
Voice, Aug 22 2020
  

       Yeah both jobs are overworked, stressful, and knee- deep in regulations to remember. I would see more of an age-progression evolution, with older cops moving to light-duty mail as a possibility rather than one person or department trying to cover both roles.
RayfordSteele, Aug 22 2020
  

       // He starts out good enough but the later ones get all preachy. //   

       That's because he was a convert to catholicism, and therefore a rabid proselytizer...   

       But he produced one truly outstanding work, for which he can be forgiven all else. <link>   

       // Police are massively overworked. Even if this involved hiring enough cops ...//   

       But that's the whole point.   

       "Human history is the story oif scarce resources that have competing uses".   

       (Allegedly democratic) Societies get the police service that they are prepared to pay for.   

       You can have more and better police relatively quickly, BUT if the revenue base is fixed (which means taxation) something else has to go.   

       Therefore the police are "massively overworked" because this situation is acceptable to a majority of voters (in theory).   

       If it weren't, then a candidate who stood for election with a manifesto of "More money for police" (more taxes/cut other services) would (theoretically) get elected.   

       Since observational evidence indicates that this rarely happes, it seems reasonable to concluded that the current situation is satisfactory.   

       Unless, of course, you know different ... ?
8th of 7, Aug 22 2020
  

       Situational politics have much more than maximum average satisfaction achievement as driving force. There are inopportune constraints and interests that warp the results into a laffy-taffy version of what would be the happy medium.
RayfordSteele, Aug 22 2020
  
      
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