ACAB includes the lego city police department and all their many wacky vehicles

where do you think all the lego criminals come from. are there lego city slums where poverty is rife? why does lego city have an entire prison island...

also, it seems that lego city police has a history of excessive force, as in their police boat commercial they use a giant wave created by their boat to throw a group of prisoners into the harbor

I did a little bit of research into what the Lego City budget may look like. I looked at all 77 sets in the 'Lego City' collection and found that:

-19 sets are police themed
-30 sets would reasonably be funded by a city government
-28 are private property or non categorizable

This means that approximately 38% of Lego City's budget is going to policing. This makes it comparable to the city of Chicago (39.6%) when looking at % of budget spent on policing.

However! This does not tell the whole story, because 13 sets are dedicated to the exploration of space and the arctic, which in all likelihood are not being funded by Lego City directly, and are more likely a national effort. When we remove that we get...

A near 50-50 split between city services (fire, hospital, street sweeping, etc) and police vehicles. What kind of city spends so much on their police? Why does Lego City have such a massive crime problem?

My theory is that Lego City heavily criminalizes immigrants and paints them all as criminals. In the Lego City short 'Cooks Everywhere', a massive wave of "criminals" move to Lego City all at once, creating havoc before the police round them all up.

Could the Lego City police be using fears around immigration as a way to beef up their police budget?

Mayor Gleeson of Lego City (introduced in the Lego City: Undercover video game) was a former police chief and is described as "tough but fair". Perhaps this is why the LCPD receives so much funding?

There also doesn't seem to be a real criminal justice system outside of police & prisons. Where is the Lego City courthouse? Are all crimes an automatic life sentence and a lifelong branding as a criminal? If so, no wonder there's so many escape attempts.