Society has made the mistake of not better defining and thereby restricting what a police officer should or should not be doing and what they should best be attending to, in regards to their daily interactions with the general public. Because police officers, have the power to arrest, and thereby the authority to take away the freedom of a given citizen, this thereby signifies that a significant portion of the population, is almost never comfortable with their involuntary contact with police officers, and seldom would desire to initiate such contact. This actually makes sense, for freedom and liberty are absolutely precious to most people, of which, few are desirable of having such taken forecefully away from them, or to have such liberties revoked without their willful consent.
On the other hand, this country has robust social services that are expressly there to be of service to the population, and of which this foundation is augmented by the meaningful contribution of good people from various charitable organizations. It would seem that in many cases in regards to non-violent people that are homeless, or suffering from mental health issues, or drug abuse, or basically falling into any of those “victimless” crime categories, that this would be better dealt with by those that are well versed as well as competent in dealing with people in a manner in which they can be of assistance to them; rather than such being dealt with by someone that is trained to maintain civil order, often, by any means, necessary.
Again, police officers are trained and instructed to maintain civil order, of which, often they resort to expeditiously removing the problem from the public eye, for they have neither the time nor the patience nor the social services background to do much else. Yet, this does absolutely nothing about resolving the underling issues of the people, involved; nor does it do much of anything of merit, except to serve to delay until another day,what should be more appropriately dealt with in a manner in which a helping hand is extended, to the degree that such can be safely and prudently so done.
While we may not wish to acknowledge the fact that they are a multitude of people that have issues that preclude them from functioning in a manner that adheres closely to social norms as well as social preferences; it is our duty as a society to come forth with programs that foregoes punishment as the default rule, and replaces such with programs that are sensible in helping to alleviate suffering by an honest effort to deal with people in a manner in which we are of meaningful service to them.
After all, the object of the exercise is not to lock up people simply because they are a nuisance to us, but rather to make the effort to provide them with the tools and the wisdom in which they thereby have the opportunity to turn their lives around, or if not that, at least, to provide them with some degree of autonomy as well as self-respect.