I listen to it via SDRTrunk which is fascinating, but challenging with so many channels of so many different things going on. That being said, half the police chatter is encrypted. Not by default, but they have the option. And that's totally fair.

The police deal with a lot of sensitive situations and personal information. If it was my information that they were reading across the radio, I'd rather it's not generally available for any random person to get. Plus I've seen first hand what happens when the criminals have scanners tied to police radio. My favorite was 4th of July in San Francisco - everyone was setting off illegal fireworks all over. Some of the bigger displays would go on for quite some time then, as soon as there was a police dispatch call for that location... the fireworks show would stop and no one would get caught. 15mn later... the show would start again.

Clearly people are listening and using the information for illicit purposes. There are not a huge number of benefits to the public having real-time access, but there are some huge detriments. Note: I said real time. Recordings obviously should be kept of everything.

And remember, cops have cell phones. If they really want to say some shit and not have it recorded, they know how to turn off their body cams and use their phones. It's not like the public listening to the radio is gonna keep a bad cop from doing bad things.