[aaronapple]

This should be heavily publicized. Hopefully, by letting people know that they can earn a good living by being a police officer, the quality of candidates will continue to increase. Entering the police force still carries a stigma, IMO, particularly around not being highly intelligent or thinking for oneself. Those are likely the people we want as our police officers; I'm more than happy to have my taxes support such pay levels if we do attract those people to the force.

[Zigurd]

It's the culture, not the pay. Want to get horrified? Go read cop boards like officer.com.