Having lived in a small town when I was young and still having family living in such communities... I can say you will hear two totally different takes on the topic and they will be effected heavily by which category of person someone is in. What I mean by that is that small town policing and culture centers around there being "the right people" and "the wrong people". The residents in the right-people category tend to be oblivious to this dynamic and think small town policing is friendly and wholesome because they are allowed to get away with anything while those in the wrong people category tend to experience a living hell where they can never get ahead due to constant harassment. These categories tend to have racial, socioeconomic, and sins-of-the-father influences.

I suspect the biggest contributor to this dynamic is the police living in the same community they are policing and the extended family interpersonal relationships that brings into play on top of the echo chamber that is small town life.

I say all of this coming from a family group that was solidly in the "right people category" in a few different small town communities across the few different states I have family in. My family in those towns seemed oblivious to this dynamic but myself living back and forth between urban settings and small towns while growing up couldn't help but notice. Being half african black, due to my immigrant father, probably also effected my perspective.

Needless to say, I prefer urban policing to small town policing because it feels more honest and less corrupt to me due to lacking the same extremely dramatic right-people and wrong-people aspect. Urban policing is shit but at least it lacks this weird aspect.