Gallup: Confidence In Police At 22 Year Low

Confidence in the police has tied a 22 year low, according to a new Gallup poll.

Gallup reports that while a majority of Americans, 52 percent, still say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot”of  confidence in the police, that level is the lowest the poll has seen since 1993.

The poll found that 25 percent of Americans said they had “a great deal” of confidence in the police while 27 percent said they had “quite a lot,” 30 percent said “some,” 16 percent “very little,” and 2 percent said “none.”

According to Gallup, the 18 percent total of “very little” and “none” is the highest it has seen.

Gallup attributed the decline in confidence to recent police actions in cities such as Ferguson, Missouri, Staten Island, New York, and North Charleston, South Carolina where black men were killed by white police officers.

“These events likely contributed to the decline in confidence in police, although it is important to note that Americans’ trust in police has not been fundamentally shaken — it remains high in an absolute sense, despite being at a historical low,” the Gallup report reads.

Overall the group that saw the largest drop in confidence were Democrats, who experienced a 13 percentage point decline over the past two years.

“The Democratic Party has typically received much higher support from racial and ethnic minorities than the Republican Party, and that is reflected in the greater concern rank-and-file Democrats typically express about matters of race and the greater importance they assign them as a voting issue. As a result, Democrats of all races may be especially concerned about alleged mistreatment of black suspects by white police officers,” the analysis adds.

The poll notes that while confidence the police has declined, Americans so have more faith in the police than “most other institutions.”

The telephone survey of 1,527 adults was conducted June 2-7and has a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points.