I earnestly want to believe that police are there to actually help the citizens, where ever in the world that may be. The degree to which that aspiration is achieved is likely related to the involvement of those citizens in oversight, formal and informal, of their respective police establishments. I wonder - is there some threshhold size of community where police tend to develop a stronger "us vs them" attitude. Are police in big cities phsychologically further removed from the people they are supposed to protect than they are in smaller towns and villages? "Bad guys" can be found on both sides of the badge.