Why does it always appear that POLICE in America are so focused on piracy, extortion, robbery ashore, revenue sourcing, ultra-vires activity, legal plunder, ill-gotten gains and unjust enrichment? Why do they often act in bad faith?

For context, this is a question I answered on Quora

Because you cannot avoid all too common occurrences like this.

Tennessee Highway Patrol falsified at least 16 DUI arrests since last year. Blood work on the falsely arrested drivers showed they were completely sober.

This is not a few bad apples problem. This is a systematic problem that occurred across several counties in Tennessee. The perverse incentives that encourage this behavior is the same one that boosts their public image and helps them move up in the ranks. With alcohol consumption on the decline and with more people drinking at home instead of bars the demand for drunk driver arrests is now exceeding the supply of drunk drivers which is apparently why Tennessee Highway Patrol have to resort to arresting people who don’t even drink.

Out of the 16 false DUI arrests one jackboot thug was responsible for half of them

These are not whoopsies. This POS and the ones like him, the so called ‘bad apples’ that are always shielded by the rest of the department and police union, also know that the courts will likely grant them qualified immunity in civil suits because the courts have stretched that special legal privilege to cover any deliberate and malicious thing a cop can do to violate an innocent person’s rights including enabling domestic violence on behalf of their own gang members.

Fabricating crimes and framing innocent people (see Mohamud v. Weyker) and even censoring citizen journalists with arrests just for filming them and speaking out against them.

The “bad apples” are nearly always protected by the system; their fellow badge, internal affairs, the police unions and the ever expanding doctrine of qualified immunity that protects deliberate violations of constitutional rights now just because the exact same case hasn’t showed up in the circuit that has jurisdiction over the case.

Freedom of the Press vs. Qualified Immunity

Civil forfeiture, which I believe may be the main gist of your question, is something the Feds encourage through equitable sharing program that can bypass state bans on forfeiture of property without formal charges and/or an arrest (e.g. New Mexico). A lower standard of evidence and putting the burden of proof on the victims in civil court where they do not have a right to an attorney makes it far easier than actually proving someone’s guilty of a crime. And since 90% of dollars in circulation have cocaine residue it is very easy for police to manufacturer a preponderance of evidence with a canine they have trained to always alert them.