Why not insured by actual insurance companies? Surely after any incident the insurance company would raise premiums and after a certain point it would no longer be affordable for bad cops to be cops.

This wouldn't be too different from a medical professional being required to have malpractice insurance.

That's what I came around to, cops should get a stipend to pay their bond. And make sure the insurance companies have full access to their personal files. I think that would get rid of 90% of your problem cops right there. Because they'd be unable to find insurance.

Yes, that's fine. The key point is making the police financially liable for their transgressions.

That might work, but I think focusing on the money is a very USA approach to issues. Other countries don't seem to have that incentive structure, yet still avoid these issues (at least the blatancy of them).

Are the pensions controlled by the police unions?

Pensions vary per state. In California, police pensions are mostly aggregated in an organization that specializes in administering public sector state/local employees (except teachers) called CalPERS.

The department pays into the pension for the employee if I have my facts straight. Some cities have gone bankrupt because they chose not to do this.

Police unions largely exist for setting the employment contracts, lobbying (err “bribing” if you aren’t in the US) legislators for favorable legislation language, and to assist union members if they get into administrative problems (like being caught on camera killing an unarmed civilian) or if they are disabled/killed.

The USA is a very USA kind of place.

No clue on how their pensions are run, my comments are of the armchair variety. All I know is that the system is broken and money is the key lever in the system.

As long as this doesn't limit damages. I personally think municipalities should be on the hook for these so that they have some responsibility for the actions of their police force.

It hasn't worked so far. The incentives have to be direct.

First targeting indemnification in addition to QI needs to be a talked about goal. So far, I’m seeing a lot of articles about QI and none about indemnification.