In the tumult going on the last few weeks about police power, corruption, brutality, and need for reform, this question has been kicking around. Alex Tabarrok has some interesting comments on the likelihood of separating the arms of state responsible for violent crime and routine rule enforcement, like traffic safety:

Don’t use a hammer if you don’t need to pound a nail. Road safety does not require a hammer. The responsibility for handing out speeding tickets and citations should be handled by a unarmed agency. Put the safety patrol in bright yellow cars and have them carry a bit of extra gasoline and jumper cables to help stranded motorists as part of their job–make road safety nice.

This “defund the police” term has been in the mediasphere lately, but I like Alex’s alternative better:

Defunding the police, whatever that means, is a political non-starter. But we can unbundle the police.