There needs to be balance of effective nuanced safety while embedding technical, societal and institutional controls to avoid dystopia. This will need to calibrated via annual referendums and citizen involvement in oversight, transparency and communication.

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in DC had 3,188 sworn officers as of early September 2025. The National Guard surge represented a roughly 72% increase in on-the-ground security personnel relative to the existing MPD force (calculated as 2,300 surged troops divided by 3,188 existing officers). The National Guard surge in Washington, DC, initiated in early August 2025 as part of a 30-day crime emergency declared by President Trump (which expired around September 10 but was extended through November 30 for some troops), involved deploying approximately 2,300 troops alongside federal law enforcement agents.

Violent crime declines ranged from 15-50%, with specific estimates including 23% shortly after deployment, 25% overall, 45% in the first 19 days, or up to 50% in some analyses. Carjacking declined 66-88%. Troops were primarily deployed to high-crime areas, which had above-average rates of violent and gun-related incidents, contributing to targeted deterrence.

There is across the US an overall understaffing and underbudgeting of police. These declines are relative to past decades. The calibration is to restore previously attained safety levels and effectively increasing modernizing policing and national guard to match current threats and problems. The argument that it would be dystopian is to say that the known experience and budgets for policing that people lived through and better public safety and felt were not dystopian.

Have referendums. If we restored budgets and staffing levels and used some effective combination of technology and had policies and public engagement and transparency with the goal of achieving some high level reductions in crime. This seems like getting back to a better safer society while maintaining the public connection and involvement with policing. Get something effective, matching the levels of problems while being affordable and not creating the right checks and balances.