Amid renewed discussion of police procedures, large bipartisan majorities believe at least some changes are necessary. Partisans do differ on the extent of change needed and the urgency of police reform generally: Democrats say major changes are needed; Republicans say minor ones would suffice. Democrats consider police reform a high […] Read more »
Confidence in police practices drops to a new low
Americans’ confidence in how police are trained and their treatment of Black people both have fallen to new lows in an ABC News/Washington Post poll. Following the death of Tyre Nichols after he was beaten by Memphis police on Jan. 7, just 39 percent of adults in the national survey […] Read more »
Public opinion remains split on police killings
We’re here again. Another senseless police killing. Another Black person needlessly dead, another devastating video documenting the violence. We’ve been here too many times. And reactions are mixed, as usual, between those who think these killings are isolated events, and those who see them as part of a pattern that […] Read more »
Overall approval of U.S. Supreme Court has ticked up from post-Dobbs low six months ago
A new Marquette Law School Poll national survey finds that 47% of adults approve of the job the U.S. Supreme Court is doing, while 53% disapprove. Approval of the Court has been rising from a recent low point of 38% in July 2022, although it remains well below the 60% […] Read more »
The Politics of Respectability and Black Americans’ Punitive Attitudes
Existing research largely ignores Black support for punitive policies that target group members, even as this support challenges expectations of in-group favoritism and group solidarity. The current research fills this gap by leveraging a familiar concept: “the politics of respectability.” Building on historical and qualitative accounts of this worldview, which […] Read more »
2023 Edelman Trust Barometer: Navigating a Polarized World
2022 was supposed to have been the year when the world emerged from the pandemic, with a promised return to normal life and an economic boom. Instead, we got an unprecedented Russian invasion of Ukraine, spiraling commodity prices, greater global food insecurity, skyrocketing interest rates, continued climate shocks, strict Covid […] Read more »