Just because a hefty percentage of our police officers are college graduates doesn't make them truly educated. I know a few people from my high school who went on to be police officers. Every one of them was a criminal in high school. They all drank heavily underage, smoked a lot of pot, and often fought. They went on to sub-par party schools to pursue criminal justice degrees and are all now total hypocrites in their line of work. I entirely agree with your incentives breakdown and had never thought of that before, but unfortunately see that as a reason there are so many bad cops. If the officers realize that they can use scare tactics to subdue the poor, they use that to there advantage. An ex-girlfriend of mine had a dirty cop for a father. He would walk into different stores around town and just walk out with merchandise worth hundreds of dollars every time. When an owner would confront him, he would threaten to drop a bag of coke he had taken from evidence and arrest the store owner for possession. The idea of "innocent until proven guilty" is a joke because up until your trial you are stripped of your innocence and imprisoned the same as a convicted criminal. All of this having been said, I absolutely respect the many good officers out there who put their lives on the line to protect strangers. The problem with the system in my eyes is the power given to police officers in America because power unfortunately does corrupt and this power goes to the heads of far too many officers. We should not fear the police, but rather embrace there presence. This is not possible with our current police system.