Average police salary on long Island is approx $80,000 per year NO OVERTIME.
You get the same police work as you do for $41K in Jacksonville: shitty, annoying, harassing poor people, handing out tickets.
The talk of liberal judges is extraneous. These would be public sector unions, (as are teacher unions) which even FDR derinded as "too liberal" for the public good.
A public sector union is the classic socialist setup: top down solutions only, across the board implementations only. This reflects on police like on teachers: pay scales based on seniority not merit, difficulty removing bad apples, etc.
There is limited economic determinism with police. Salaries are not great, but not bad either. (Average US salary for a man all professions is $36K).
Those who stay are as likely to self select for the job for economic reasons as they are for the others: fraternity, camaraderie, not getting tickets, small penis syndrome etc.
The solution is less policing, not more. We've already crossed the threshold of maximizing the return on our tax investment.