Depending upon your race, creed, age, place of residence, and many other factors, your opinion or experience with police in all of their many functions may be diametrically different than someone else's. The thing about police is that your interaction with them, voluntary or involuntary, can dramatically change your life within seconds, so that it is fair to say, all things being equal, your basic preference would be that in an interaction with a police officer, you would prefer that the officer demonstrated strength under pressure, respect, discretion, and calmness, as opposed to someone having a distinct proclivity to take serious action first, and then to maybe ask questions later.
The best police officers are officers that actually have taken the time to know the people on their beat, from all walks of life, and are fair, as well as reasonable and rational, but unfortunately, that type of service does not exist in most communities, which is unfortunate. There are communities, though, typically very exclusive communities, often homogenous in racial characteristics, without apartment dwellings, rich, well off, educated, and isolated, that have set up covenants within their community for the security of their community. These covenants allow the community to hire directly a "patrol" that is neither your basic security flunky patrol, nor police officers, sheriffs, nor other officers of the law. Instead, the patrol of that community is typically made up of ex-law enforcement officers, retired or not, and possibly others that have a law enforcement background with all having the type of personality that works well with people of known privileged.
These patrols within the covenant laws have specific things that they are set up to do, which typically would be to handle he basic stuff: such as being first responders to resident calls, handling burglaries, collisions, housing alarm calls, other property crimes, and security checks. Because the patrol is physically within the community, available 24/7, even if a resident was to call the sheriff, the patrol would respond first, with the sheriff coordinating with the patrol as need be, although no doubt, the covenant probably has written deep within its bylaws that the patrol works as a first responder for the sheriff, with the sheriff holding all legal and arresting authority.
The advantage of any community having its own patrol force that essentially behaves as its own resident police force is that that force will most definitely make it their duty and obligation to keep their constituents both happy as well as safe. This means, that as a resident, if you have an issue or concern about a crime, potential crime, or incident, the patrol will both listen to you and respond well to you. Additionally, and not too surprisingly, this also means that people that do not live within that community but are traveling through the community, will be monitored very closely, and those that don't have a valid reason to be in the community based on prima facie evidence such as having the wrong vehicle, or not a landscaper or construction worker or delivery person, and further that visual information of the occupants of suspected vehicle seem non-congruent to the community will not be given a free pass throughout the community without either formal contact or documented note of such a vehicle.
The upshot is that when the police or patrol that acts as the de facto police, are in essence employed as agents of the community as contrasted to being agents of the State, the community will get far better, far more exhaustive and complete protection from outside elements, and further to the point, the residents of such community will be in the position to which the police essentially really do serve, protect, and answer to them.