Yoshie, you are addressing an epiphenomenon rather than the cause. US is a very violent and lawless society and 'war on crime' and incarceration is *a* response to that problem. Perhaps not the most effective one, but still a legitimate response. Your position is like calling for the removal of a bandaid from a wound, but doing little about the wound itself.
IMHO, the higher crime rates in the US, as compared to other developed countries, are ultimately linked to the land use that is markedly different in the US than elsewhere. Unlike other countries, the US land use promotes high geographical mobility and that has been shown to have a positive effect on crime rates. The links that connects geographical mobility to crime is informal social control that exists in established communities but is lacking in transient ones.
I may add that such mobility also produces de-facto segregation by income level and race that negatively impacts informal social control of behavior that occurs in "somebody else's neighborhood." European communities are much more integrated, and if pockets of segregation exist (e.g. Roma people in the Czech Republic, or immigrant communities in France or Germany) - they tend to produce higher crime rates.
So the right, from a left's point of view, thing to do is not mindless cop bashing, but addressing the root causes of crime to which the US criminal justice policies are an ineffective response. Among the most prominent factors affecting crime rate is land use - which in the US has been serving the interests of big developers rather than the communities and people who live in them (stated differently, it is not capitalism in general, but its particularly virulent variety that exists in the US that causes high crime rates). In other words, stop the government and corporate induced geographic mobility, and you will see a drop in crime rates.
PS. I am nonplussed to hear a call for less cops from a feminist - after PDs finally started implementing more aggressive policies to control crimes against women (esp. domestic violence).
wojtek