I don't think we'll ever have a zero-crime society, neither should we aim to be one. But being left to the vagaries of police (and union) politics, culture and the complications of city budgets is clearly broken.
Example: Cities are being presented a false choice between accepting deadly high speed chases vs zero criminal accountability [1], which in the world of drones seems silly [2]
I don't want the police to have unfettered access to surveil any and all citizens but putting camera access behind a court warrant issued by a civilian elected judge doesn't feel that dystopian to me.
Is that what Ellison was alluding to? I have no idea, but we are no longer in a world where we should disregard this prima facie.
[1]: https://www.ktvu.com/news/controversial-oakland-police-pursu...
[2]: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-poli...
> I don't think we'll ever have a zero-crime society, neither should we aim to be one.
This reminded me of https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...