About 200 people attended a public meeting in Strabane yesterday organised by the Independent Police Commission.
Most of those who spoke in the predominantly nationalist Co Tyrone town were critical of the RUC.
Strabane Sinn Fein councillor Mr Jarlath McNulty said the RUC was totally unacceptable and he had no confidence in it. Castlederg SDLP councillor Mr Ignatius Murtagh said a police officer had told him the RUC was a paramilitary force in the past but was changing. He said that was an analysis many people from his area would challenge.
Former SDLP councillor Mrs Mary McCrea said there had been much criticism of the police, but she wondered if the community wanted to see as an alternative people who dressed in boiler suits, wore masks, and dispensed their kind of justice with baseball bats.
"We have to say the RUC is not going to change in two or five years, but we can make it a better police force, and we will have to take it on trust."