The answer is undoubtedly (2), assuming the mass surveillance leads to the justice system actually doing its job and jailing people who commit crimes and not letting them out. This is to be fair a big assumption, because as it turns out, the justice system in practice is highly self-defeating and corrupt. Zillions of violent criminals are let off easy, while people who did basically nothing or even nothing at all are sometimes relentlessly persecuted or even killed.

(1) has been tried again and again and again. It doesn't work, and when it doesn't work, we're simply told even more money is needed.

Unfortunately, it's people who believe in (1) who have gotten us to this point. The more criminality increases and basic social trust/cohesion degrades, the more authoritarian methods (like mass surveillance via Flock) are required to address crime at even a minimal level. For example, the famous street in LA where children are openly prostituted, while the police stand by helpless [1] - that's an example where the preconditions for justice and law enforcement have already totally broken down and there is nothing that can be done "within" the system, respecting human rights and due process. When you create mass outlawry, the only thing that resolves it is monsters like Bukele. That obviously has its own problems.

This is why it is so incredibly important to deal with crime swiftly, surely, and yes, harshly. Criminality is a social contagion that, if allowed to spread, turns into a cancer that requires extremely dangerous remedies like metaphorical chemotherapy.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/magazine/sex-trafficking-...

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newspaper1 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Incorrect on all counts: https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/impact-of-social-welfar...

Obviously investing in social health improves crime rates. That's just common sense (and backed by all historical data).

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Amezarak 2 hours ago | parent [-]

About 20% of US GDP is social spending. What percentage of GDP will get us where we need to be? Why does California have so many notorious problems when, compared with many other states, its social spending is so generous?

Social systems are not as simple as "give people more money", particularly when millions of people have already been socialized into criminality. Thinking this is a total misunderstanding. Most criminals are not stealing to get bread to feed their family. They commit crimes because a) it's fun b) it's what their peers are doing / needed for their social standing and c) it beats working for a living. Yes, a well-socialized conscientious person would never do this except in cases of severe hardship - but that's not the reality of what's happening.

	▲	newspaper1 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		California notoriously does not house the homeless nor feed them, leading to massive amounts of crime by people with mental illness having to live on the street. It also has some of the worst wealth inequality on the planet. When a 1 bedroom shack costs >$1M, you've basically taken a sledge hammer to any concept of a society. 20% of US GDP goes mostly to social security, imagine how much crime we'd have if we didn't spend that and every senior citizen had to scavenge for food! I would say at least 99% of of the money we spend on police and the military should instead go to social support and local infrastructure improvements.