Sorting millions of things by some visible (to cameras) feature completely automatically, especially if the cost of a miss is low.

Either the robbery is severe enough for the person who was robbed to assemble a little group to catch the robber or they just let it slide. If we know some info about the robber we could let any institutions in the surrounding area know that this person is to be exiled or at least that his missteps be brought up before he is again considered to be part of polite society.

Local neighbourhood watch /militias could also exist and take over some of the polices current work especially when it comes to groups of potentially violent perpetrators.

None of this is going to be particularly effective but it’s not like currently a robbery, or most other crimes are likely to be effectively prosecuted either so I don’t see the big issue.

There are more watertight arguments made by anarchists, syndicalists and the like that you could read and agree or disagree with. But at the end of the day there is little ability for either of us to demonstrate, to me that the police can be fixed with any proposed method, and to you that society without police would work/ be more fair. So ultimately we are not gonna get much further here.

Cops are a few hundert years old concept why would they be necessary now when most places they barely existed pre ww1.

Your second paragraph is just as pie in the sky as abolishing, specifically because as with every position entailing power over others, authoritarians will flock to it.

The police was created so that wealth and power can effectively use part of the state for physical protection of their assets and lives, and that is still their operating background, the management of the local meat packing factory or the amazon warehouse will have much greater access to police resources than you or your plumber, by design, the law is imperfect and cops are not doing their job, more or less on purpose. And this status quo will not change unless at least some part of this system is entirely redone.

If the greater context in which the police exists, makes normal people scared of consequences, and powerful people immune to consequences enacted by police, why should any normal person argue for their existence.