Confidence in Law Enforcement Continues, But Viewpoints Vary by Race
SAINT LEO, Fla., Sept. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- A new nationwide survey by the Saint Leo University Polling Institute (http://polls.saintleo.edu) found that trust and confidence in law enforcement officers, police departments, and the judicial system is steady or slightly increasing.
National ratings of policing have improved during the last year according to responses from October 2015 and September surveys. The overall positive rating of community police departments increased from 54.3 percent to 60.7 percent, a result that is statistically significant. Likewise, those rating police officers in their community as "good" increased from 53.6 to 60.9 percent over the past year.
Respondents were also asked to think about their own trust and confidence in police officers, police departments, and the judicial system, particularly if they would be treated in a fair, impartial, and objective manner by law enforcement.
Using a scale of one to 10 in which one means they have strong trust and 10 means they have no trust, the results of the national survey are:
| October 2015 |
September 2016 |
|||
| Trust and Confidence in… |
Strong Trust |
Little/No Trust |
Strong Trust |
Little/No Trust |
| Police officers |
54.7% |
22.6% |
60.5% |
20.2% |
| Police departments |
53.1% |
23.0% |
59.6% |
19.8% |
| The judicial system including courts, |
40.3% |
29.8% |
45.1% |
25.0% |
| Juries to do the right thing* |
. |
. |
46.4% |
22.9% |
*New question in 2016
Race appears to influence the national responses as 34.4, 50.8 and 67.6 percent of African-American, Hispanic and white respondents, respectively, say their community police department is "good". Similarly, 35.9, 43.5 and 68.7 percent of African-Americans, Hispanics, and whites, respectively, reported "strong" trust and confidence in police officers.
Trust in the judicial system was lower than that of police. Again, race influenced opinions with 27.3, 36.7 and 49.9 percent of African-Americans, Hispanics and white reporting "strong" trust in the judicial system, respectively.
The 2016 survey shows 89 percent of respondents in the United States say police should be required to wear body cameras, compared to 86.8 percent in 2015. Approximately 89 percent of respondents, regardless of race, agree that body cameras should be required.
Nationally, 38.4 percent of respondents of the 2016 survey said they support the Black Lives Matter movement.
SOURCE Saint Leo University
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