It's perfectly possible to create a law enforcement arm of government that's actually concerned with protecting vulnerable citizens, but that's not what the institution of policing actually focuses on.

To suggest that we can't have law enforcement without propping up a toxic system of professional predators is exactly the presumption they want you to make in order to preserve their jobs. We don't need to capitulate to a lawless fraternity to enforce our laws, we can replace it with something that isn't built on principles of oppression.

That said, their main job at the moment is to protect hoarders of wealth from the social consequences of wealth hoarding. Personally, I don't see that as necessary.

The way I understand ACAB is not to remove all cops, but reform the system fundamentally. It's a flawed system encouraging bad behavior and silence.

Nobody is advocating for zero police. It'd be better to move the police budget to more social programs to try and help people so they're not pushed into a life of crime. An ounce of prevention is worth of a pound of the cure.

You know, I hadn't thought about it, but I guess being against police brutality must mean I think there shouldn't be any law enforcement at all. Cause I certainly can't imagine a world where there are police who uphold the law but don't beat the shit out of people and kill them indiscriminately.

Your question is absurd. Pointing out that cops beat the shit out of people and kill them indiscriminately in no way presupposes that there should be no cops.

The cops are not inherently bad, it's just the system currently encourages and supports bad ones while driving away good ones. Change the system, cops get less bad.

Defunding or otherwise reducing the number of police is just a temporary harm reduction measure, since in a lot of places things are actively worse WITH police (as they stand now) than they would be WITHOUT police. That's not to say things would be great if we permanently abolish police. It's just a choice between two evils and, crazy as it is, actual criminals are the lesser evil in many cases.

Ideally, we would have police, but an entirely different set of police with an entirely different structure supporting them.

For example, make "protect and serve" a job requirement instead of a slogan, end qualified immunity, get rid of grand juries for police, etc

Restorative Justice is the best if not only way to reliably reduce crime, including that of the chronically abusive cops themselves.

For starters you don't actually need to enforce law a lot of the time, it's sufficient to simply verbally reprimand or do a number of other non-law-enforcement things to correct bad behaviour.

This is why german/nordic police are famous for how not terrible they are, they're more likely to help you out rather than punish you.

I would suggest a citizens militia made up of local residents, mostly tasked with keeping their community orderly. Not armed with guns but with Batons and Tasers for diffusing situations and self defence.

Serious deescalation and psychological training and only special units being allowed to bear arms which would only be used reactively.

ofc this would only work in a society which has alleviated social inequalities

In Germany we have something called "Ordnungsamt" (lit. meaning: Orderdepartment) imo smth like that should take over most tasks of current police and current police (in the way they are equipped) being reduced by a lot and used more rarely