What primarily motivates police officers?

Survival, financial compensation (including benefits programs), and donuts are often the leading daily motivators of your local law enforcement representatives.

The primary motivation of police officers is to hold a respectable position within society. Police get respect. There are other motives as well. Police are well paid. Police often get to help people. Police are, at times, the only people standing between us and chaos. It's an honorable profession - most of the time. There are, of course, cases of horrible police corruption, and that too is a motive for some policemen. If you want to abuse the position, it offers tremendous opportunities for abuse. But yes, there are donuts too. Let's not forget.