In U.S., Black Confidence in Police Recovers From 2020 Low

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- After dipping to a new low last year following the George Floyd killing, Black Americans' confidence in the police has mostly recovered but remains low. Currently, 27% of Black adults in the U.S. say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the police, up from 18% in 2020 but similar to the levels seen between 2014 and 2019.

Meanwhile, White Americans' confidence in police is unchanged from a year ago and lower than it had been before the Floyd incident.

Last year's update of this Gallup trend, measured in June and July 2020, found 37 percentage points separating the figures for White and Black Americans. With the uptick in confidence among Black Americans this year, the gap has decreased to 29 percentage points. The current Black-White difference is similar to the average 30-point gap between 2014 and 2019, a period marked by several high-profile events in which Black people were killed in incidents with White police officers.

Between Gallup's first measure of confidence in the police in 1993 and 2013, White and Black Americans' ratings of police were generally stable and differed by 25 points, on average.

Overall, 51% of all U.S. adults currently have confidence in the police, after it dropped to a low of 48% last year. Confidence is still slightly below the pre-Floyd reading of 53% from 2019 and well below the historical high of 64% in 2004.

The annual Gallup update on Confidence in Institutions comes from a June 1-July 5 Gallup poll that includes oversamples of Black and Hispanic adults to allow for reliable reporting of those subgroups.

Forty-nine percent of Hispanic Americans are confident in the police, significantly higher than the 27% among Black Americans but lower than the 56% among White Americans. The 2020 Confidence in Institutions survey did not include an oversample of Hispanic adults; however, the available data suggests their confidence in police also fell last year but has rebounded this year.

Confidence in Criminal Justice System Shows Modest Racial Differences

While Black Americans are far less likely than White Americans to have high confidence in the police, neither group has strong confidence in the criminal justice system, more generally. Just 17% of White Americans and 11% of Black Americans have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in it.

However, the two racial groups differ on the lower and middle range of the confidence spectrum -- 61% of Black Americans, compared with 41% of White Americans, say they have "very little" or "no" confidence in the criminal justice system.

Currently, 35% of Hispanic Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the criminal justice system, more than the 30% who have little or no confidence in it.

	Black adults	White adults	Hispanic adults
	%	%	%
A great deal	5	4	16
Quite a lot	6	13	19
Some	29	42	35
Very little	58	38	28
None (vol.)	3	3	2
Total % Great deal/Quite a lot	11	17	35
Total % Very little/None	61	41	30
(vol.)=volunteered response
Gallup, June 1-July 5, 2021

Last year, White Americans were more confident in the criminal justice system than they are this year (24% versus 17%), while Black Americans' confidence is unchanged. For most of Gallup's trend, there has been little difference in the percentage of Black and White Americans who have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the criminal justice system.

During the 1990s, roughly equal percentages of Black (44%) and White (41%) Americans said they had "very little" or "no confidence" in the criminal justice system. But a gap emerged in the 2000s as the percentage of Black adults with little or no confidence held steady while fewer White adults, averaging 28% between 2000 and 2013, held that view. The racial gap expanded in 2014 as increasingly more Black Americans expressed low confidence in the justice system.

Hispanic adults have tended to have more confidence in the criminal justice system than either White or Black Americans. Since 2011, when Gallup began regularly conducting interviews with both English and Spanish-speaking Hispanic respondents, an average of 30% of Hispanic adults have had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the criminal justice system, compared with 24% of White adults and 20% of Black adults.

Black-White Differences in Ratings of Police Largest for Any Institution

White and Black Americans differ in their confidence in a number of U.S. institutions, but their ratings of police show the largest contrast. The 29-point gap in confidence ratings of the police far exceeds the next largest gap, which is 19 points for small business.

There are also double-digit gaps -- by racial group -- in ratings of the military, science, the U.S. Supreme Court, the presidency and television news. White Americans have more confidence than Black Americans in all of these except the presidency and television news.

In contrast, Black and White Americans have similar levels of confidence in the public schools, newspapers, large technology companies, churches/organized religion, the medical system, banks and organized labor. Confidence in these institutions tends to be low among both racial groups.

In addition to Hispanics' higher ratings of the criminal justice system, they also have greater confidence than Black or White Americans in the public schools, Congress, organized labor, the U.S. Supreme Court, banks and large technology companies.

Bottom Line

Gallup's tracking of confidence in police dates back nearly three decades, and during this time, Black Americans have never had a high level of confidence in that institution. The series of killings of Black men and women in incidents with White police officers in the past seven years has only further diminished Black Americans' trust in law enforcement, which hit a record low last year after Floyd's death. Black Americans are even less likely to have trust in the criminal justice system.

The reasons for the increase in Black Americans' confidence in the police this year are not clear. It could merely be a fading of the intensity of feelings surrounding the Floyd incident. The murder conviction of former police officer Derek Chauvin in the Floyd case may have raised hopes in the Black community of increased accountability for police officers involved in deadly incidents. Additionally, over the past year, many police departments across the country have instituted reforms to address racial disparities in policing.

Regardless of the reason for improved Black Americans' confidence in the police this year, it still lags behind where it was in the 1990s and early 2000s. While it may be too early to know whether the newly instituted policing reforms have achieved their aims, it is clear that simply enacting those has not yet been enough to restore the confidence in police lost by the Black community in recent years.

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