Most Americans oppose ‘defund police’ push — but answers depend on race, poll finds
The majority of Americans oppose the movement to defund the police, according to a poll by ABC News/Ipsos released on Friday.
Only 34% of Americans surveyed support the push to “defund the police,” and 39% support decreasing police department budgets and reallocating money to housing, education and mental health programs, the poll found.
Fifty-five percent of Democrats support defunding the police while only 9% of Republicans agree.
The majority of Black Americans agree with the movement at 57%. Support among whites was 26%, while 42% of Hispanics support the movement and reallocating funds to community programs.
Support is highest among the 19-to-29 age group at 46% and lowest among those age 65 and older at 19%.
The ABC/Ipsos poll was conducted June 10-11 by Ipsos Public Affairs KnowledgePanel. It was based on a sample of 686 “general population adults 18 or older” using the online-based KnowledgePanel. “The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults,” the poll said.
Philip V. McHarris of Yale’s sociology and African American studies department told PBS that the “defund the police” movement has been in the works for years but has entered the mainstream consciousness during the George Floyd protests.
The movement seeks to divest funds from the police and reallocate the money to community programs to fund emergency response alternatives to policing, according to PBS.
McHarris said the current policing system doesn’t have “accountability, and safety and transformative justice” that allows people to be “repaired, restored and healed from harm,” according to PBS.
“When we talk about defunding the police, what we’re saying is invest in the resources that our communities need,” Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza told NBC News. “So much of policing right now is generated and directed towards quality-of-life issues, homelessness, drug addiction, domestic violence. … But what we do need is increased funding for housing, we need increased funding for education, we need increased funding for quality of life of communities who are over-policed and over-surveilled.”
Minneapolis leaders have vowed to disband the Minneapolis Police Department following protests in the wake of Floyd’s death, The Guardian reported.
Lisa Bender, the Minneapolis City Council president, said there would still be a short-term police department, but the majority of 911 calls are related to mental health programs and medical emergencies. Those programs would be “prioritized in funding,” Bender said, according to The Guardian.
Floyd, 46, an unarmed Black man, died while in police custody on May 25, and his death sparked an avalanche of protests across the nation. He died after now-fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed a knee into Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, as three other officers didn’t intervene.
Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao were also fired and arrested, charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
This story was originally published June 12, 2020 at 4:11 PM with the headline "Most Americans oppose ‘defund police’ push — but answers depend on race, poll finds."