Concerns about crime and gun violence have surged to the top of issues that worry Americans, a new USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds, but attitudes about how to respond reflect the repercussions of the nation’s debate over racial justice. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said violent crime has worsened in the […] Read more »
As public safety tops the agenda, Americans want both order and justice
As America emerges from the COVID pandemic, crime and public safety have re-emerged as a major focus of the American people. This comes as Americans believe (correctly) that violent crime across the nation has increased from last year and (incorrectly) that violence is at a thirty-year high. Support for the […] Read more »
Concern over crime is growing — but Americans don’t just want more police
Concern over crime has reached the highest point in four years amid a spike in killings in big cities and an uptick in violent crime, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Friday, and the percentage of Americans who say crime in the United States is “extremely serious” has […] Read more »
Biden is rated poorly on handling crime; alternative approaches win broad favor
The number of Americans seeing crime as an extremely serious problem in the United States is at a more than 20-year high, President Joe Biden is underwater in trust to handle it and broad majorities in an ABC News/Washington Post poll favor alternative crime-fighting strategies to address it. A sweeping […] Read more »
Most Americans Favor the Death Penalty Despite Concerns About Its Administration
The use of the death penalty is gradually disappearing in the United States. Last year, in part because of the coronavirus outbreak, fewer people were executed than in any year in more than three decades. Yet the death penalty for people convicted of murder continues to draw support from a […] Read more »
What the Public Thinks About Major Supreme Court Cases This Term
The arrival this term of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald J. Trump’s third appointee, has transformed a Supreme Court with a slight conservative majority into one that tilted right by a 6-to-3 margin. Justice Barrett has also left Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. with a sharply diminished ability […] Read more »