Nearly all Americans want criminal justice reform, poll finds

After weeks of demonstrations, Americans overwhelmingly favor significant changes to the country’s criminal justice system, according to a new poll from the The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. 

|
Julio Cortez/AP
People gather on June 3, 2020, at the site where George Floyd died in Minneapolis. A recent AP-NORC poll finds that just 5% of Americans think that "no changes" are needed to the criminal justice system.

Americans overwhelmingly want clear standards on when police officers may use force and consequences for officers who do so excessively, according to a new poll that finds nearly all Americans favor at least some level of change to the nation's criminal justice system.

The new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds there is strong support for penalizing officers who engage in racially biased policing. Americans are more likely now than five years ago to say that police violence against the public is a very serious problem and that officers who cause injury or death on the job are treated too leniently.

"For me, as a Black person, I'm like, this has been happening," said Kevin Richardson, of Charlotte, North Carolina. "We should've been knowing it, we should've been seeing this and so now what's happened is, I'll be honest, white people are seeing it and saying, 'This is wrong.'"

The survey of American adults took place after weeks of mass demonstrations against police violence and calls from some politicians and activists to "defund" departments in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in custody after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes.

Americans are largely united behind the idea that action is required: 29% think the criminal justice system needs "a complete overhaul," 40% say it needs "major changes" and 25% say it needs "minor changes." Just 5% believe no changes are necessary.
Megan Pecknold of Spokane, Washington, said the protests have forced her to think about these issues in a way she had the luxury, as a white person, of previously ignoring.

"I had never really given much thought to police use of force. I'm white. I've never had a bad encounter with a police officer," she said. "The last few months have brought to light more of this for me, and now I am educating myself."

Nearly 6 in 10 Black Americans think the criminal justice system needs a complete overhaul, compared with about a quarter of white Americans who said the same. About 4 in 10 white Americans say major changes are needed; 3 in 10 prefer minor changes.

While Democrats are more likely than Republicans to think the system needs an overhaul, 44% to 12%, Americans across party lines are nearly unanimous in thinking at least some change is necessary. Another 44% of Democrats think major changes are necessary. Among Republicans, 34% call for major changes and 47% for minor changes.

The poll finds overwhelming support for changes in how police departments operate: requiring officers to wear body cameras, establishing clear standards for use of force, prosecuting officers who use excessive force, and requiring officers to report misconduct by their peers.

Despite their popularity, body cameras have not always proved to be the fix reformers hoped. But Kimberly Jones of New York City, said they are at the top of her list.

"You need more seeing what's going on as they're pulling up on people," she said. "You need to know from the start so you can stop something bad from happening."

Majorities of Democrats and Republicans alike strongly support establishing clear standards for use of force, requiring officers to wear video cameras, and requiring officers to report misconduct by their peers. There also is bipartisan support for prosecuting officers who use excessive force and penalizing officers for racially biased policing, though more Democrats than Republicans intensely favor these policies.

Brian Bernard, a Republican and retired IT worker from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said the bystander video of Mr. Floyd's death was like watching a "9-minute murder." But he said the problem is one of a bad cop, not a bad system. Banning chokeholds or requiring retraining won't make a bad officer better, he said.

"Democrats and liberals seem to have a problem of only fixing symptoms," he said. "They can never see the actual problem, and the problem is just a bad cop."

While chants of "defund the police" have become a rallying cry at some protests, the survey found that only 25% of Americans favor reducing law enforcement funding. Democrats are somewhat more likely to support than oppose doing so, 41% to 33%, while Republicans are overwhelming opposed.

Bob Haines, a pilot from Oklahoma City who supports President Donald Trump, said he thinks police officers do an excellent job.
"Just like in my profession, most of us do a good job, but there are a few bad pilots," Mr. Haines said. "A couple of incidents have happened, and all of a sudden the sky's falling, you know?"

Democrats and Republicans divide on whether the justice system should reduce the focus on policing and prosecuting low-level offenses, with 63% of Democrats and 30% of Republicans in favor. Overall, Americans are more likely to be in favor than opposed, 46% to 25%.

To prevent police violence, most Americans also favor requiring all officers to participate in more extensive racial bias training.

Majorities of Americans think that police are more likely to use deadly force against a Black person and that Black Americans are generally treated less fairly by police.

Ms. Peckhold, who favors moderate changes in the criminal justice system, said those changes should be targeted at chipping away at systemic racist behavior.

"I don't think Americans really understand how police are taught these tactics to begin with," she said. "Understanding the details more will help us make smarter changes."

The AP-NORC poll of 1,301 adults was conducted June 11-15 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the United States population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writer Sean Murphy in Tulsa, Oklahoma, contributed to this report. 

Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Nearly all Americans want criminal justice reform, poll finds
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2020/0623/Nearly-all-Americans-want-criminal-justice-reform-poll-finds
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe