>the strongest consensus among experts is that police need more specializations, much like healthcare.

One of criticisms of healthcare is that we need more generalists so that people can afford basic checkups and routine care without obscene expenses. The call for more specialization might only serve some small minority of cases at wildly out-of-proportion rates.

Part of why policing seems so ineffective is because, whether or not it was deliberate, police forces have mutated into the "drug money confiscation force". Most people do not have active problems caused by or aggravated by drug dealers, and certainly not to the degree that would be indicated by how much police effort is expended toward those criminals. When real crimes are reported, we're told "tell it to your insurance company", the police never investigate, solve, or prosecute the people who commit those crimes.