ronburgundy
Contributor
Two separate national surveys, both done within the past couple months paint an interesting picture and suggest that Biden and the DNC are correct to embrace major police reform but not to embrace the "defund the police" rhetoric, which is highly unpopular even with Democrats and Black Americans.
Both surveys were done by respected organizations run by academics in the social sciences, and who use rigorous methods and large random national samples: NORC, based at the University of Chicago, and Gallup.
One survey shows that 85% Democrats and 93% of Blacks want "major changes" or a "complete overhaul", with similar numbers saying police who injure or kill civilians are treated too leniently. Predictably most Republicans disagree and want minor or no changes to law enforcement (proving they don't care about the race issue or just cops killing people in general).
About 2/3 of Democrats want less policing and prosecution of low-level offences, and less use of military style equipment.
80%-91% want supervisors prosecuted for the racist actions of their subordinates, and want extensive racial bias training.
In fact, most Republicans even want those last two things but a sizeably lower 59%-70%.
Despite support for those major changes and others, only 40% of Democrats and 43% of Black Americans want to see any reduction in funding for law enforcement (which speaks to lack of support for "defunding" by any standard definition of that word. While the margin of error for that one was a bit large at 5% that doesn't change the conclusions about majority opinion of each group.
The Gallup survey had 30,000 respondents and thus a much smaller margin of error (less than 1% for most results) and further supports that lack of support for defunding, by showing that only 19% of Black Americans want the cops to reduce the time spent in their neighborhoods, which is only slightly higher than the 12% of white Americans. In fact, 20% of black Americans want to see the cops spend more time in their neighborhood, with the majority okay with the current amount of time. This is true even among black Americans who had interactions with the police in the past year.
And this is despite the fact that only 18% of these respondents are "very confident" that they would be "treated with courtesy and respect" by the police during any interaction. Only among the 12% of black Americans who were "not at all confident" of being treated with respect did a slight majority favor fewer cops in their neighborhood, and they comprised only 7% of the sample.
In sum, if the majority of black Americans and Democrats want major reform but do not want either less funding or fewer cops in their neighborhood, then "defund the police" is clearly a doomed failure or at least a failure to use words properly by calling major reforms something that to most English speakers means something they don't support, even in the face of some of the most severe and clear cut cases of criminal police brutality.
OTOH, the data also show that most republicans do favor some reforms to reduce racial bias by cops, which means Trump and most GOP politicians and the right wing media are lagging behind even the slowly evolving human decency of their constituents.
Both surveys were done by respected organizations run by academics in the social sciences, and who use rigorous methods and large random national samples: NORC, based at the University of Chicago, and Gallup.
One survey shows that 85% Democrats and 93% of Blacks want "major changes" or a "complete overhaul", with similar numbers saying police who injure or kill civilians are treated too leniently. Predictably most Republicans disagree and want minor or no changes to law enforcement (proving they don't care about the race issue or just cops killing people in general).
About 2/3 of Democrats want less policing and prosecution of low-level offences, and less use of military style equipment.
80%-91% want supervisors prosecuted for the racist actions of their subordinates, and want extensive racial bias training.
In fact, most Republicans even want those last two things but a sizeably lower 59%-70%.
Despite support for those major changes and others, only 40% of Democrats and 43% of Black Americans want to see any reduction in funding for law enforcement (which speaks to lack of support for "defunding" by any standard definition of that word. While the margin of error for that one was a bit large at 5% that doesn't change the conclusions about majority opinion of each group.
The Gallup survey had 30,000 respondents and thus a much smaller margin of error (less than 1% for most results) and further supports that lack of support for defunding, by showing that only 19% of Black Americans want the cops to reduce the time spent in their neighborhoods, which is only slightly higher than the 12% of white Americans. In fact, 20% of black Americans want to see the cops spend more time in their neighborhood, with the majority okay with the current amount of time. This is true even among black Americans who had interactions with the police in the past year.
And this is despite the fact that only 18% of these respondents are "very confident" that they would be "treated with courtesy and respect" by the police during any interaction. Only among the 12% of black Americans who were "not at all confident" of being treated with respect did a slight majority favor fewer cops in their neighborhood, and they comprised only 7% of the sample.
In sum, if the majority of black Americans and Democrats want major reform but do not want either less funding or fewer cops in their neighborhood, then "defund the police" is clearly a doomed failure or at least a failure to use words properly by calling major reforms something that to most English speakers means something they don't support, even in the face of some of the most severe and clear cut cases of criminal police brutality.
OTOH, the data also show that most republicans do favor some reforms to reduce racial bias by cops, which means Trump and most GOP politicians and the right wing media are lagging behind even the slowly evolving human decency of their constituents.
