1. This poll highlights the heightened exposure to dangerous police interactions Black Americans experience.
- While Black Americans are less likely to experience being pulled over by the police (70%) than white Americans (83%), mostly due to lower rates of car ownership, they are much more likely to experience escalations with the police. Among those who have been pulled over…
- Black Americans are more than three times more likely (14%) to report the police officer removed a weapon from its holster than a white person (4%). Hispanic Americans are twice as likely (9%) than whites to report an officer drawing a weapon.
- Black Americans are almost twice as likely (40%) as white Americans (22%) to report additional officers arriving on the scene. Hispanic respondents are again more likely to experience this (31%) compared to white people.
- Black (28%) and Hispanic (25%) people are significantly more likely than white people (17%) to report being searched after a traffic stop.
- Black Americans are also more likely to report they or someone in their immediate family has been arrested or detained by police (40%) compared to white (28%) or Hispanic (27%) respondents.
2. A year after the country experienced the largest civil rights protest in a generation, many Americans do not feel the country has made progress on race.
- Only one in three Americans (35%) agree that the 2020 racial justice protests had a positive impact on society. A quarter (24%) have no opinion and two in five (40%) disagree with the statement.
- Almost three in five (59%) Americans say the country needs to continue making changes to give Black Americans equal rights with white Americans.
- Less than a quarter (23%) agree with the statement “America is not a racist country.”
- Fewer than one in seven (13%) think that the treatment of Black Americans by police improved over the last year. Most (51%) think it is unchanged with a third (35%) saying it got worse.
3. Americans have a complicated view of policing, with support for reforms but little support for “defund the police.”
- Only about a quarter (27%) of Americans support the “defund the police” movement with white Democrats (50%) being the most supportive.
- However, a majority of Americans (57%) support diverting some police budget to community policing and social services, accomplishing much of the same objectives without the polarizing name.
- Americans overwhelmingly support requiring independent investigations of police involved shootings (83%) and civilian police oversight boards (67%).
- However, a clear majority of Americans (61%) also support increasing funding of the police.
4. Partisanship, particularly partisan difference among white Americans, define many of the dividing lines on racial issues.
- On the impact of the 2020 protests, fewer than one in ten (8%) white Republicans believe the 2020 protests were positive. Compare that to three in five (60%) white Democrats, over half (52%) Black Americans, and just over a third (38%) of Hispanic Americans.
- On if the country needs to continue to change to give Black Americans equal rights, one in five (19%) white Republicans agree compared to almost nine in ten (87%) white Democrats.
- On if America is a not racist country, half of white Republicans (47%) agree compared to one in twenty (4%) white Democrats.
