> There are plenty of poorer cities where the police have been involuntarily "defunded" by NYC or SF funding standards and they don't have the rampant petty crime that many west coast cities seem to.

The thing is: where there are a lot of juicy targets (e.g. tourists), there will automatically be more petty crimes. As a robber you'll have more profit going around and snatching airpods or phones from a ride in the NYC subway than from walking around in some shoddy 'hood in a flyover state.

> Defunding the police isn't the problem. IMO a stretched thin PD is a well behaved PD.

Actually not, because a "stretched thin" force is more likely to shoot first or otherwise use excessive force to get a suspect under control and ask questions later than to use de-escalative tactics which require extensive training (in Germany cop training is a three year thing for exactly that reason vs. the average 21 weeks in the US). If you want police to approach sensitive stuff like domestic violence or rape in an appropriate manner, the officers will need to have both the training and the time for doing so.

> The problem seems to be related to all the policy baggage that comes with the "defund the police" crowd.

And what "policy baggage" is that? To require a social worker to come with and eventually be leading the response to a domestic violence call isn't baggage, it's the whole point of the thing.