James, I'll excuse your extreme ignorance (der) and assume you don't like police because you can't take personal responsibility for a ticket you received...
Otherwise, the department I work for has several police officers / detectives that are also pilots...(der)...a couple that hold law degrees...(der)...and nearly all that enjoy doing their job, which is catching people that are doing bad things to others.
Every department has folks who enjoy the job and folks who hate it. Saw that personally when I worked Sheriff's dispatch in a tiny department.
Have seen departments that serve themselves first, and departments that serve the public first, too. Let's not pretend both types aren't the norm. Most of that comes directly from the goals and character of the leadership.
And some leadership plays a nice game but really is out for themselves, too. That's how my old county ended up locking up the Sheriff who was so "beloved" they named the new jail after him while he was still in office, inside his own jail, for hard drug and sex crimes, and suspected of being involved in someone's decision to commit suicide rather than take on the "beloved" Sheriff. They couldn't find evidence he murdered, but his power and position meant he didn't have to. He simply threatened and the scared individual who decided to engage with him in drugs and sex, took care of it for him.
No department is as rosy as it would like to believe. Most are middle of the road in usefulness and effectiveness (which is quite good but still puts them square in the mediocre middle of the standard bell curve), and a few are downright awful.
I'm generally a fan of the police. I'm all for significantly higher pay, mandatory education levels, and removal of the liability protections afforded government workers. Pay high enough they can all afford similar levels of malpractice insurance as our Docs buy, and let the market and the insurers come up with insurability requirements for people who carry and may wield deadly force.
Same as Docs, pilots, etc. No playing outside of the personal liability rules for negligence and gross negligence, and a paycheck that affords some really good insurance.
Once you're so bad you become uninsurable, it doesn't matter how many people like you or crony job offers you get, you're out of the biz. Too dangerous to insure, you're done.
Would keep stuff like the guy who has had $1.2M worth of taxpayer funds used in his defense of a multitude of excessive force cases, all settled for "undisclosed sums" with taxpayer money. Actuary table would say, "This job doesn't appear to be something you're worth insuring for anymore... trash collector or fast food manager might be more up your alley..."
Take the monkey off the back of the taxpayer who has to pay for both their lawsuit and the defense against their own lawsuit. A major problem with personal liability removal.
But the public would have to pay and pay well for the job, so I don't see it happening.
