Thanks for asking! I maybe should have mentioned that I am speaking from a place of personal experience and also the experiences I've had relayed to me by my ne

Thanks for asking! I maybe should have mentioned that I am speaking from a place of personal experience and also the experiences I've had relayed to me by my neighbors. I've also heard normal terrible stories about the police everywhere I've lived, but this posse thing is relatively new to me so I thought it prudent to highlight as one example. I currently live in a rural area where the sheriff's office provides bullet-proof vests using county funds, and has vowed to expand the program in the coming year. I am not aware of any training necessary to volunteer for the posse (the sheriff's office doesn't publish any clear guidelines about this.) All that I am aware of is that there are roughly ~30 officers total on this half of the county, and over 380 posse members according to published numbers. I have heard of a few cases of posse volunteers following people around in an intimidating fashion (Despite no wrongdoing occurring on the part of the of those followed. Every bit of weird behavior on their part was focused on Hispanic people and young women.) There was no news of anyone being reprimanded or ejected from the posse. As for community policing goes, I think that term may mean different things to different people. If by community policing you mean "possibly untrained, armed and armored people doing patrols with opaque rules and structure with limited accountability to the community, all on the taxpayer dime" it sounds somewhat similar to regular policing without having to pay salaries or pensions. I do not find that to be a meaningful difference (aside from the significant savings) , and not something that I would endorse.