I've not had many run-ins with the peelers myself, mostly because I'm way too much of a nerdy shut in to ever get into trouble. The couple of times I have been in potential trouble (i.e. being a drunk rowdy teenager) the cops just told us all to sod off home with more a rakish grin than a stern rebuke.

The on-duty cops I have met have generally been alright and friendly enough and I sure as hell want well-trained people out there tracking down rapists and killers and all that, so I'm not opposed to the principle of the police and I've not had any bad experiences personally, but the way things are set up encourages all kinds of horrible behavior on their part. Even things that should be benign like giving someone a ride home late at night gets turned into what sounds like a pretty scary experience, because the police just abuse their power and there's basically no oversight.