Only 29 percent of black Americans have a great deal or some trust in the police, according to a new survey from YouGov and Yahoo.
This compares to 66 percent of white Americans who trust the nation’s police departments.
The recent survey revealed the massive divide in opinion over how black people in America are treated by the police with white respondents voting against cuts to police funding and saying they feel safer with a police presence.
The survey was conducted between June 9 and June 10 as protests against police brutality gripped the U.S., sparked by the death of black man George Floyd while in police custody on May 25.
Yet, it also revealed that while the majority of respondents supported reforming the police and believe a change is needed, only 24 percent support defunding police departments.
According to a YouGov/Yahoo survey conducted on June 9 and 10, 66% of white people have a great deal or some trust of the police compared to 29 percent of black people
When broken down, only seven percent of black people have a great deal of trust in the police and 22 percent have some trust.
Among white respondents, 27 percent had a great deal of trust in the police and 29 percent had some trust.
Trust was also higher among Hispanic people with 31 percent stating they trust the police a great deal and 33 percent saying they have some trust for the police
According to the survey, which questioned 1,570 American adults over the course of two days, 50 percent of black respondents still said that ‘we need more cops on the street’, even as 49 percent of black respondents said when they personally see a police officer it makes them feel ‘less secure’.
Only 12 percent of black respondents said that seeing a police officer usually makes them feel more secure, as opposed to 40 percent of the white people who responded.
The survey found that most black Americans said they were more worried about police brutality against minorities than about local crime and thought the Minneapolis City Council’s pledge to dismantle their police was a ‘good idea’.
Black people voted by an overwhelming 71 percent to say that they were more concerned about police brutality against minorities than crime in their local community.
Only 39 percent of white people said they were more concerned about police brutality.
The divide was seen further as a much smaller number of black respondents believed white and black people are given equal treatment by the police.
Twelve percent of black respondents in the survey said that they usually feel more secure when they see an officer personally compared to 40 percent of white people
The vast majority of black respondents said they are more concerned about police brutality against minorities than crime in their local community, according to the poll
Twenty-eight percent of white respondents said that black and white people are given the same treatment compared to nine percent of black respondents.
Black people also favored cutting funds to police departments compared to white people.
Thirty-one percent of black people would like to see funding cuts as opposed to 25 percent of white respondents.
Instead of police forces, black people favored ‘gradually redirecting police funding toward increasing the number of social workers, drug counselors and mental health experts responsible for responding to non-violent emergencies’.
Only three percent of black respondents felt that police departments didn’t need reform while the vast majority – 64 percent – believed that reform is possible, and they shouldn’t be defunded.
The final 33 percent believed in defunding police departments.
Just 9% of black respondents said that black and white people are treated equally by the police
More black respondents than white respondents favored cutting funding to the police
Among white respondents, the majority of 56 percent also believed that police departments needed reform and had a problem with race but did not need defunding.
Yet, 21 percent felt that no reform at all is needed.
Among all respondents, 24 percent support defunding the police but 59 percent believed it could be reformed.
The majority of all white, black and Hispanic respondents believed that chokeholds, strangleholds and shooting at moving vehicles by police should be banned, the survey found.
They also agreed that officers should be required to warn a suspect before shooting, that officers should be required to report each time they use force or threaten to use force against a civilian, and that other officers should step in if they see a colleague using excessive force.
They continued to agree on a national registry to track police misconduct, that law enforcement agencies should be required to report data on the use of force, and that all uniformed federal officers should wear body cameras
Yet differences were seen again in other police reforms.
The poll revealed that most respondents do not want to defund the country’s police departments and believe that reform is possible. Pictured, the Minneapolis police department which the city council voted to disband and replace after the death of George Floyd
Black people were more likely to vote for police funding to be transferred to social workers, counselors or to community programs.
This compared to only 28 percent of white respondents were happy see police funding be redirected to community programs.
The survey also focused on the police response the recent protests which saw a wave of video and pictures emerging of cops using extreme force and violence against demonstrators and scenes of looting as protests tuned to civil unrest.
White respondents were more likely to approve of the police response to the protesters compared to black and Hispanic people.
A higher percentage of all races disapproved of the police conduct, however, and believed they had not acted correctly.
A very small percentage of white people believed that police had reacted with violence to the peaceful protests – nine percent – compared to 20 percent of black respondents and 16 percent of Hispanic respondents who felt they had acted violently.
White people also believed that protesters had been more violent than police.
The poll revealed that white people are more likely to think that protesters showed more violence at the recent protests against police brutality than the police forces did
The majority – 51 percent – said protesters were more violent and a further 24 percent thought the violence was equal between both groups.
This compared to 41 percent of black people who believed police had acted more violently. Another 38 percent of black respondents thought police and protesters had equally acted with violence.
The difference between the U.S. political parties and their reactions to the protest can be seen in the breakdown of which voters thought the police or protesters acted violently.
Seventy-four percent of those who thought protesters were more violent were Republicans and 23 percent were Democrats.
In contrast, only seven percent of those who said the police were more violent were Republicans compared to 45 percent of Democrats.
The political divide was seen again later in the survey as responders were asked about who would have handled the protests better: President Donald Trump or Democratic party nominee Joe Biden.
Seventy-five percent of those who sided with Biden were Democrats and 74 percent who chose Trump were Republicans.
Biden’s support among black voters was evident with 70 percent of black respondents choosing him over Trump.
Among white respondents, 38 percent said Biden would have done a better job, but he was beaten by Trump by one percentage point.