Confidence in Police Is at Record Low

For the first time in its 27 years of measuring attitudes toward the police, Gallup found that a majority of American adults do not trust law enforcement.

The survey, conducted by Gallup from early June to mid-July 2020, found that confidence in the police had fallen five points, to 48 percent, from the year before. Gallup, which started tracking the public’s confidence in a range of public institutions in 1973 during the Watergate scandal, adding the police in 1993, said this was the “first time in the 27-year trend that this reading is below the majority.”

The survey found that 56 percent of white adults said they were confident in the police, whereas only 19 percent of Black adults said the same. That 37-point gap is larger than it has been historically, according to Gallup, which also found a divide in Americans’ trust in the criminal justice system.

“One of the starkest metrics in this year’s poll is that only 11 percent of Black Americans express confidence in the criminal justice system,” Mr. Younis said. “That means nine out of 10 Black Americans in this country do not have confidence in a process built on the theory that all citizens are equal before the law.” That’s compared with 24 percent of white Americans, according to Gallup’s poll results. (Three-quarters (75%) of white Americans do not have confidence in the criminal justice system).

 

It's important to note that while the majority of Americans (national average) expressed a lack of confidence in the police this year, confidence in police has almost always been under sixty-percent (60%). In most years, forty-percent (40%) of Americans lack confidence in the police.

There are many good reasons for Americans not to trust the police. The article 7 Reasons American’s Don’t Trust the Police highlights some of those reasons.