Crisis, plunge, and recovery of public confidence ?in the police: Data from six national surveys

Abstract

This paper depicts the trajectory of Americans' confidence in their police across five months before, during, and after the nation was riveted by Minnesota police murdering a Black civilian and the implications thereof for our civic community and our national commitment to equal protection. Data from the International Social Science Survey and the international WVS/EVS surveys show that Americans' confidence in their police is, on average, fairly typical of other advanced societies, coming 30th out of 110 nations worldwide. Within the US there was sharp political divergence. Democrats' confidence in the police plunged dramatically around the time of the killing, and then rebounded even more strongly later. But this was only among Democrats. Republicans' views were stable across the period. Regression analysis reveals that that this pattern holds controlling for social and demographic factors, including race. The patterns of change in confidence in the police were replicated for trust in the police. In addition, Blacks and Whites were equally confident in the police across most of the period, except that shortly after the murder Black's confidence plunged briefly and temporarily lower than their White peers'; the subsequent rebound in confidence was especially large among Blacks. Further multivariate analysis reveals that the degree of confidence people feel in the government as a whole is by far the largest determinant of how much confidence they feel in the police. Sociodemographic factors other than race play no clear role. Racial prejudice is irrelevant. In short, all this is mainly party politics.