Abortion Policy Editorial

In 2022, Roe v. Wade was overruled and therefore a right to an abortion was no longer guaranteed as a constitutional right. Abortion care is widely debated in America. It has been turned over to the states to determine if an abortion is lawful or not. It is within the power of the citizens of each state to vote on a decision either by supporting abortion rights through referenda or by voting for state legislatures or governors who will enact the sort of abortion laws they favor.

The power is back the the hands of the common people. The common people are the ones who need abortion care or know someone affected by abortion care. We the people must know why this aspect of healthcare is vital, and should be kept legal. In a 2004 study, 74% of participants had abortions due to an emotional and financial responsibility to individuals other themselves that was multi-dimensional (Biggs). These situations of pregnancy can force a dramatic life change, and some people know they will have an inability to afford a baby. Others may not want to be a single mother, or may not be ready for a child. The other significant justification could be focused on the fetal or maternal health as reason for abortion (Biggs). These are all reasonable explanations for the motive behind their decision. 

It is reasonable to have an abortion in America. Individuals who seek abortion for emotional and financial reasons may have lasting consequences if they do not receive abortion care. Those consequences may sometimes be wonderful, but sometimes they may be horrible. Many things can happen when a child is born in the wrong time of another’s life. Many cannot afford to meet on the expenses of a child. This can lead to the to reliance on community, state, and federal support systems. Child bearing reduces time for work or school, and may create a need to go part-time. This will also lead to a reliance on other supports and resources. It is reasonable to want to be able to work full time and support yourself. It is not selfish to want to be in a stable position in life. The values of self-reliance and self-sufficiency and personal autonomy can all be supported by decisions to end a pregnancy with an abortion. Being able to have access to abortion care tends to show an overall trend of less reliance on other support systems. 

Another reason for an abortion is concern for one’s health or the health of an infant. People may have an abortion for a variety of reasons. The other major reason for abortion is concern for one’s health or for the health of an infant. Sometimes the developing fetus can become an elevated risk for a mother to continue to carry. This could be the end of the mother if she gave birth, and sometimes the infant too. This can leave families motherless or without any guardians. In other cases, the developing fetus can have birth defects, developmental problems, structural abnormalities, and genetic disorders or mutations. All of these can lead to the decision to terminate the pregnancy as the birth could lead to early death or overall poor quality of life. Children deserve to have a healthy life with the same choices and opportunities everyone has. Children should not have to suffer their birth defects throughout what life they have until their eventual death.

Overall, Abortion care is widely debated in America. It has been turned over to the states to determine if an abortion is lawful or not, this means it is within the power of the citizens of each state to vote on a decision. The power is in our hands to make the choice.

Works Cited

Biggs, M Antonia, et al. “Understanding Why Women Seek Abortions in the US.” BMC Women’s Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 5 July 2013, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3729671/. 

“Roe v. Wade.” Edited by Center for Reproductive Rights, Center for Reproductive Rights, 1 Apr. 2024, reproductiverights.org/roe-v-wade/.

        I wonder if you have anticipated the best argument in favor of states banning, restricting, and outlawing abortion or certain types of abortions. For me, the best argument in favor of abortion bans would be based on the value of preserving life, the right of people to have life, and the human and civil rights of unborn children.  This is a strong position if we accept the assumption that the value of life, the sacredness of life, or the rights of a person begin in the potential person in the mother’s womb at some early stage.  

To me, it seems the way to answer this position is to reject the assumption that the rights of life begin early in the pregnancy. Also, on what is this assumption that the sacredness or value of life begins early in the pregnancy, rather than at some later point, perhaps 10, 12, 15, or 20 weeks after fertilization?  It seems to me that it is based on religious beliefs that are specific to some religions, but not universally held by all religions, and not held by many people who do not profess religious beliefs.  So, by banning abortion, it seems to me that the government is stepping in and favoring the religious beliefs of specific sects and faiths over others.  That is also a violation of a fundamental value of government: to not impose one set of theological beliefs on everyone else. 

        The crux of the matter is that we have no consensus on when the person begins. Without a widely understood point in the gestation where we have a consensus that the unborn have the rights of those who have been born, we should defer to medical professionals and the moral conscience of the patients and doctors.

         Yet another problem is that when the state intervenes in this matter, the politicians are also stepping in between the mother and her physicians.  As I see it, relationships between patients and physicians must be respected, and the government should only in special cases make laws restricting the procedures that the medical profession can recommend or physicians implement. If a procedure is risky, offers little hope of benefit, and a strong probability of harm, I can accept government regulation of it to outlaw or discourage the remedy, but otherwise, it seems to me that physicians and their patients must decide for themselves what is medically necessary and what risks are worth taking and what the benefits are.  I do not like the government getting in the way of the relationships between physicians and patients.

        A further problem we have here with the regulation of abortion is that it seems to me that we do have a constitutional right to privacy.  The concept of “privacy” was widely understood and discussed at the time the constitution was written.  When specific rights were listed in the Constitution, the authors made it clear that the Constitution was not providing a complete list of all the rights held by citizens—the Constitution only mentioned a few out of many that were understood or rightly held by citizens. I believe the Court was correct in 1973 to suggest that laws forbidding abortion were infringements of a right implied but not specifically named in the Constitution. Laws allowing citizens to take away this right are unconstitutional.

        We have a democracy in which legislatures and the people can make any law they want to make up to a point, but in the end, the final say rests with our Constitution.  The Constitution is essentially our dictator, our monarch, our law that stands above the laws we can make in Congress or state legislatures or treaties (well, maybe treaties stand with the Constitution above all other laws, but they are easily abandoned, unlike the Constitution). It seems to me that the Supreme Court erred in 2022 with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization by failing to respect the right to due process, the right to privacy, and the right to be free from the establishment of a state religion.  The U.S. Constitution is the law that is enforced by coercion, and it forbids the secular power of government, which is the coercive force of the public, from forcing through threat of violence (police and legal action that could deprive people of their property or freedom) laws that reflect specific religious beliefs, or interference in the relationship between the medical profession—its physicians—and their patients, or violations of the rights to privacy we all hold.  

        It may be that there is another moral law that would in most cases make abortion a wrongful action, and in some religious codes of law abortion might be banned in some circumstances or approved in other circumstances, but in cases of religious law or personal moral choices, the government must stay out of these, and allow citizens to exercise their own autonomous and independent moral judgment. 

        

The Invisible System: A Struggle for Success

"Everyone change, grab your bags, and line up," the officer ordered, her voice cold and commanding, as she stood near the entrance to the locker room. A group of girls, no older than 16, quickly pulled on their clothes, anxious to get out of the room as swiftly as possible. Their movements were stiff, as though the weight of the moment—being watched, being controlled—was already heavy on their shoulders. Once they had gathered their things, the inspection began. Each bag was searched. Each girl was patted down. No one was allowed to leave without the thorough check. Their personal items, their privacy, all scrutinized before they were allowed to leave. They had exactly five minutes to get from the gym to their next destination.

As the people moved through the hallways, they passed a series of locked bathrooms. In two buildings with 4,355 people, only two restrooms per building were open—located at the front of the building, far from where most students had their classes. These restrooms, too, were heavily monitored. Security guards were stationed outside, ensuring that no one could enter without being observed. The intent was clear: no hiding, no vaping, no breaks. The people were forced to endure outside until the first person came out with little time to actually use the facility.

The few people who needed to use the restroom were forced to wait, with just five minutes to get in and out and to their next location. It was not just a matter of time—it was a

matter of control. Every student was watched, through the tight, monitored hallways. No one was free.

"You would not make it in college if you were not in honors courses," my College Prep Writing teacher told us. "The quality of this high school’s regular courses is below the state average. They are very easy to pass, but not if you want to attend college." She said this to a class of 18 Hispanic students and four Black students. These 22 students were among 4,355 total enrollees at the school, 97.5% of whom were minorities: 81% Hispanic, 12.9% Black, with the remaining students from other backgrounds.

Sixty-eight percent of the student body were low-income, many of them first-generation college students.

Some students were forced to balance their studies with part-time jobs or taking care of younger siblings. Many could not afford college and some students, would attend the local tech school offered as an elective during school hours.

Meanwhile, the school itself was desperately underfunded. Counselors were overwhelmed with caseloads, unable to provide the support that so many students needed. For a student body of over 4,000, there were only four counselors per grade level, and a mere three social workers for the entire student body.

Beyond that, extracurricular activities were sparse—and those that existed were poorly advertised. Clubs and sports were just out of reach for some students, and would miss the opportunity to provide valuable skills and college applications boosts.

The school was split into two campuses: one for freshmen and sophomores, and another for juniors and seniors. Each campus was monitored by its own officer an unspoken reminder that discipline, not education, was the priority.

Most of these students faced significant academic challenges. The school did not even teach essential skills like APA and MLA formatting, how to email professors, or how to prepare for the ACT or SAT. They did not have the resources to help students succeed on standardized tests, and they did not have the time to teach students the skills that could set them apart when applying to college.

The state’s average SAT proficiency in math and reading was 20%. In my district? It was a mere 7%.

In a place where authority and surveillance were a priority, where students' movements were monitored and their freedom restricted, it was easy to forget: this was not a prison. It was a school.

But in so many ways, the distinction does not matter. The path that was set long before them and to some it was all too familiar—paved with obstacles, limited opportunities, and few opportunities to escape. For many of these students, the school-to-prison pipeline is an every day reality.

The school-to-prison pipeline refers to policies that push at-risk students, particularly those from marginalized communities, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. It usually begins with underfunded schools, where overcrowded classrooms, unqualified teachers, and insufficient resources like counselors and special education services create environments that foster disengagement and higher dropout rates. In some cases, schools get incentivized to push out struggling students to boost test scores, a practice that increased by accountability measures like the No Child Left Behind Act.

In response to low performance and safety concerns, many schools have adopted zero-tolerance policies that impose severe punishments for minor infractions. These policies

disproportionately affect students of color and often push them deeper into the juvenile justice system. Suspended or expelled students are left unsupervised, fall behind in their coursework, and become more disengaged, increasing their likelihood of dropping out or facing criminal charges.

As these penalty measures become more widespread, and due process protections are increasingly bypassed—especially for students with special needs, who are already disproportionately affected by the system. Additionally, many underfunded schools rely more on police than educators to maintain discipline. School resource officers, often untrained in youth engagement, contribute to a rise in school-based arrests, typically for non-violent offenses like disruptive behavior.

It is important that we address these systemic issues by advocating for better resources, ending zero-tolerance policies, provide proper training for school staff, and ensuring fair treatment. We must prioritize education over punishment, and work towards a system where all students are given the tools and support they need to succeed.

Works Cited

Counseling. Waukegan High School. (n.d.). https://whs.wps60.org/educational_services/counseling 

What is the school-to-prison pipeline?. American Civil Liberties Union. (2008, June 6). https://www.aclu.org/documents/what-school-prison-pipeline

Waukegan High School. U.S. News & World Report. (n.d.).

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/illinois/districts/waukegan-community-unified-school-district-60/waukegan-high-school-7062

I remember the shock and dismay I felt when I went to the high school orientation for my eldest son here in Springfield, at Southeast High School.  Rather than talking about the academic program or the excellence of teachers or the achievements of the students, the welcome messages was mostly about discipline and behavior and punishments and that sort of thing.  I knew that Southeast was the only high school in the area that significantly outperformed a model of student achievement (I created a predictive model based on demographics and income status of the area's high schools to estimate the standardized test scores students should have scored based on their backgrounds, and I knew that while the "better" schools of Springfield High and the high school in Chatham had better scores than Southeast, they were just hitting the predicted scores based on their student bodies, whereas Southeast was having its students perform half a standard deviation higher than the model's prediction).  But, at that orientation, the message I received was "we care mostly that your students follow the rules an if they don't, we'll make them pay for their insolence" and not "we will work with your students to help them achieve whatever they are capable of achieving".  

Illinois makes school report cards available to the public. The Waukegan High School in the Waukegan Unified School District, (School District #60, in Lake County), which includes 21 schools and had approximately 14,000 students enrolled in August of 2024 has some amazing statistics. There are 1,736 English learners; students who do not speak English at home and whose English abilities are such that they need some degree of translation support to understand content in some of their courses and spend some of their study time in English-as-a-Second-Language classroom. There are nearly 500 (498, to be exact) students with individualized educational plans (IEPs), meaning they were identified as having some form of disability or difficulty that required a specialized plan to help their learning or development. This is about 12% of the total enrollment with IEPs. The school is actually drawing from a catchment area that is (very slightly) financially better-off than the average Waukegan school, as “only” 68% of the students are considered “low income”, whereas overall in District #60 the average is 73%. In the previous school year (Academic Year 2023-2024 there were 1,489 discipline actions for 643 of the students, resulting in 474 students receiving out-of-school suspensions (a total of 843 out-of-school suspensions, so many of those students had out-of-school suspensions multiple times). 

Examining scores on SATs, Waukegan High School had 2.1% of the students exceeding grade level, and 8.5% meeting grade level performance standards in English language arts; in mathematics, 0.2% and 6.3% were exceeding and meeting performance standards. Statewide, in 2024 about 10.9% of high school students exceeded English performance levels for their grade, and 20.2% met standards, while in mathematics statewide, 6.2% exceeded standards and 19.9% met standards. 

Given the demographics and income backgrounds of the students, there are some areas where the school is not especially far behind.  Of the freshmen in 2020-21, 79.6% had graduated from high school by 2024 (statewide average is 87.7%). About 43% had entered a college (community college or 4-year college) within 12 months of graduating high school (the statewide average is 66%). Of those who graduated, 35.6% were in community colleges and taking at least one remedial course (a course that wouldn’t count toward an associate degree, but would help prepare the students to take courses that would count toward their associate or bachelor’s degrees).

Those students who suffered out-of-school suspension (and those who may have been arrested by the law enforcement personnel in the schools) are the ones most likely in that school-to-prison pipeline you described.  On one hand, violence among youth in Chicago has attracted national media attention, and people in the greater Chicago area may have lost patience with young persons who behave violently as a result. So, some people may justify this “tough-on-violence” approach as a way to protect students in the schools. In 2023, young persons from birth to 19 accounted for 18.2% of the 602 homicides in Chicago (543 shooting homicides and 59 non-shooting homicides that year, 109 victims were under 20-years-old).  Waukegan is pretty far north of Chicago, but is still in the wider Chicago metropolitan area. However, Waukegan is not plagued by a high rate of violent (only 10 homicides in the city in 2023, 102 robberies, and 168 aggravated assaults and battery; rates of 1.1 per 10,000 homicides, 11.6 per 10,000 for robberies, and 19.2 per 10,000 for assaults and battery in the city with its 87,642 residents).  By comparison, my son lives in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, which has 0.4 shooting victims (fatal and non-fatal) per 10,000, but boarders Humboldt Park, which had 2.5 homicides per 10,000, and Humboldt Park borders East Garfield Park, which had 9 homicides per 10,000.  Logan Square had 30 robberies per 10,000; Humboldt Park had 58.7, and East Garfield Park had 89.7.  Logan Square had 17.0 aggravated assaults per 10,000; Humboldt had 48.3; East Garfield Park had 82.9.  So, Waukegan is considerably safer than those types of Chicago neighborhoods. I don’t see that things are so bad in Waukegan that they could justify some sort of no tolerance policies toward misbehavior in schools.

There are many other ways to handle student discipline aside from out-of-school suspensions.  The Fullmind consulting and service-providing group out of New York specializes in alternative approaches to out-of-school suspensions (for fees, they provide virtual teachers to work with students who have behavior problems or who have medically fragile situations), and their website lists ten alternatives to suspension in schools.  The American Civil Liberties Union (a group that I regularly contribute donations toward, and that opposes the school-to-prison pipeline) reports on evidence-based alternatives to school suspension.  

Child Protection and Child Welfare workers need more options for getting law enforcement support

 Between 2013 and 2017, several child welfare workers in Illinois were attacked or seriously threatened. In 2018, child protective investigator Pamela Knight passed away in the hospital after sustaining injuries from a brutal attack that occurred while she was trying to take a child into protective custody. In 2022, child protective investigator Deidre Silas was stabbed to death while making a home visit to check on children. It is no easy job to be a child welfare worker. They are often overseeing more than 17 caseloads, which is the maximum amount of caseloads that child welfare workers should have. These cases are often complex and each detail needs careful attention.

These cases are often harrowing and take a mental load on the employees. There have been numerous demands from the union that represents most of the Illinois social workers – AFSCME Council 31 – to improve the child welfare system and work environment for DCFS employees.

Fortunately, some of these demands have been implemented recently. One of them being a plan to hire and train more child welfare workers because DCFS is understaffed. Between 2021 to 2022, DCFS lost nearly 500 investigators. According to the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute, there is about a 21% to 40% annual turnover rate, and some spots in these workplaces often go vacant for long periods of time. The hiring process has become more streamlined by hosting career fairs where many of the hiring processes are done on the spot, shortening the waiting time to hear back from DCFS from 9 months to just a few weeks. Soon enough, the agency will have 4,000 employees for the first time in decades.

With more DCFS child welfare workers, there also needs to be more protection for them. Although there is a buddy system for child welfare workers to go in pairs while doing home visits, a law enforcement officer can be called to accompany a child welfare worker for protection during high-risk reports. In the Springfield office where Deidre Silas worked, since her murder two Sangamon County sheriff’s deputies work with the DCFS staff, going with them to many removals and helping social workers check on the criminal records of persons in the homes with the children. However, in some regions of Illinois, sometimes there are not enough child welfare workers or enough law enforcement officers in the primary jurisdiction of a child welfare location to accompany a worker during a visit.

One way to provide adequate accompaniment for these workers is by the passing of House Bill 4449. HB 4449 will allow law enforcement assistance from other jurisdictions to accompany a child protection investigator during these high-risk reports. Call your state senator or representative and let them know to give their support for HB 4449. You can find your state congressmen through this website. You could also reach out to the chair, Robyn Gabel, of the Illinois Rules Committee, where the bill is at at the time of this writing, to put the bill on the agenda and make it a priority. There is hope to improve one of the major systems that protects our children, and you can be part of the solution.

This is an editorial that I find compelling.  In addition to supporting a law that would let DCFS field offices seek help from law enforcement in other jurisdictions, it seems to me we need sufficient funding for the DCFS to reduce that terrible turnover and attract and retain more workers so we can get the caseloads down to something near the optimal 15 cases per DCFS worker. 

Earlier this semester when we had a social work club event where staff from the Child Advocacy Center came to explain how they do forensic interviews with children, we learned that they pretty much have to regularly schedule training sessions for child protection workers because the turnover at DCFS is so high that within a matter of months a significant portion of the workforce needs the training. 

 The turnover reflects the high pressure and modest pay in the difficult work of child protection and child welfare work.  Child protection specialists (fully trained) have salaries (as of July 2024) starting at $75,492, but child protection specialists who have recently been hired (or transferred) and are in the 6-12 month training period start at either $52,944 or $59,424.   Child welfare specialists have starting salaries at $72,060.   In comparison, about four years ago (in 2020) the Springfield Illinois police department paid new patrol officers about $78,000, and new firefighters started out around $75,000.

Student Editorial in favor of federal program providing de-escalation training for local law enforcement

  At some point in our lives, most of us will need assistance from law enforcement. Unfortunately, there is a general feeling in most of society that officers are not doing their jobs appropriately, and instead of having faith that police will be helpful, people fear police will re-victimize them. To address the dismay much of the public feels towards law enforcement, we must understand where it comes from. Implicit biases that result in unlawful traffic stops and arrests, excessive use of force, and an inability to understand how to properly handle those with mental health crises are just a few areas that have led to the disdain that many individuals feel towards police officers. These incidents are a direct reflection of ineffective training for law enforcement in de-escalation techniques and—seeing as officers are trained in this area the least—it is no wonder that some officers are incapable of doing their jobs judiciously.

Officers are mandated to take training in defensive tactics, firearm handling, and de-escalation techniques. However, there is a major imbalance on length of time in these categories. While the median for defensive tactics training officers receive is 49 hours and 58 hours of firearms training, recruits only receive a median of 8 hours of de-escalation training. The emphasis on defensive tactics and firearms training is undoubtedly crucial, but it may contribute to the extreme reaction from some officers that results in excessive force or civilian deaths. Extensive de-escalation training protects not only the public but the law enforcement agency.  It would add additional protections to police officers to be able to conduct themselves in a manner that does not immediately have to result in violence or excessive force, saving the public from tragic fatalities and allowing law enforcement to avoid lawsuits that stem from police mistreatment of civilians. 

Though de-escalation training is not a new concept, we must bring attention to deficiency in that aspect of police officer trainings. De-escalation tactics should be the forefront of police training to establish the need of understanding and empathy from officers when dealing with civilians. If the public feels that they are being treated as human beings by these people who hold so much power rather than criminals who do not deserve any compassion, we can begin to rebuild our trust in law enforcement and the justice system. Not only would an increase in these trainings benefit the public, but police officers may be able to be seen in a much more positive light.

We must demand a federally funded and mandated de-escalation training program for all officers that allows for continued training every year. We need to rebuild the public’s ease of mind and our trust in law enforcement, creating a harmonious relationship and bringing back the safety we need to feel within law enforcement. Without more emphasis on de-escalation training, society can continue to look forward to continued dread when it comes to our need for police officers in any situation.  

Resources

https://www.rstreet.org/research/exploring-de-escalation-training-programs-impact-and-resourcing/

https://peacefulleadersacademy.com/blog/police-de-escalation-statistics/#:~:text=A%20survey%20of%20over%20280,49%20hours%20of%20defensive%20tactics.

https://peacefulleadersacademy.com/blog/positive-impacts-of-police-de-escalation-training/

https://cops.usdoj.gov/de-escalation_training_act#:~:text=The%20Law%20Enforcement%20De%2Descalation,%3B%20(ii)%20safely%20responding%20to

The emphasis on defensive tactics is usually justified as a job safety issue. People working in law enforcement don’t want to be killed on the job.  But, really, how many police are killed at work (and not killed at work in traffic fatalities)? Over the past ten years, law enforcement deaths reported by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund have ranged from 118 in 2023 to 660 in 2021.  This confounds “fatal injuries” with homicides, as according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate for homicides is much lower (ranged from 26 in 2024 to 64 in 2021).  As I tell my students, about 50 law enforcement are killed (murdered) during their work each year, but police kill about 1,100 each year.  Now, are police violently attacked?  Sure, all the time.  In the two-year period 2021-2022 there were 6,680 non-fatal injuries inflicted upon police by persons who assaulted them that were significant enough that the law enforcement person had to take at least one day off from work. I presume these were law enforcement personnel on duty, and we’re not including off-duty law enforcement people who get beat up in taverns or domestic disputes. 

I had a relative, recently returned from two tours of duty in Vietnam, who didn’t like the way a couple police were bullying someone in a bar, and got into a fight with them, which he won.  I believe he spent some months on the San Francisco Bay (in San Quentin) as a result. I don’t think that sort of thing should be counted as an assault on officers in their line of work, since bullying guys in bars while off duty isn’t really what law enforcement officers are paid to do.

What we need is for some social workers and police officers to put together a standard two-day eight-hour training system with a follow-up 2-hour session held months after the initial two-day dose where police learn de-escalation and conflict resolution techniques. Then, we need to study interactions with the public that people who’ve had the training experience in the year(s) following the training, and see whether the training has improved the experiences on the job for those officers, both in terms of their self-reported experiences and by examining their record of experiences in high-conflict situations.  It would be a wonderful intervention and study, and if we could get dozens of different trainings tested all at about the same time and could determine that some of these were especially effective, then we could implement this federal program of paying for them, as you have suggested.  What I fear is that we might just spend money on training that has little influence on police behavior.  Currently, we already spend all those hours on defense training and firearms training, and I’m pretty sure that much of that training has never been studied to see whether it makes law enforcement personnel any safer.  

Recent surveys concerning police include 

the CATO Institute’s work from Emily Ekins “Policing in America: Understanding Public Attitudes Toward the Police”

According to the study presented by Ekins, only 12% of Hispanics, 13% of European Americans, and 19% of African Americans expressed “unfavorable” views toward police. While those are modest percentages, they aren’t really very small, and that represents a lot of people. Only 54% of African Americans and 57% of Hispanic Americans were “definitely” willing to report crimes to the police (over 40% were not). Compare that to 78% of European American who would report a crime. Americans with African heritage have been suspicious of police for a long time. Ekins reports that in 1970 only 43% of Black Americans had a favorable view of police, and in 2015 that number was about the same (slightly lower) at 40%.  This was a CATO Institute study, so it’s no surprise that there are obvious mathematical errors in the reported survey results, but I think the general trend that wealthier people have more positive attitudes about police is confirmed, even for Blacks, where those earning over $60,000 per year had 48% with favorable views of police, whereas only 41% of those earning less than $30,000 per year had favorable views (at all income levels, Black Americans had higher than 40% favorability rates for the police, so I don’t understand how Ekins reports that only 40% of African Americans have favorable views of the police). 

The CATO study showed that 84% of Americans oppose civil asset forfeiture (where the police can take your property and keep it if they suspect you might have used it in a crime, even if you haven’t been convicted of a crime); and 77% would prohibit police from using profanity with citizens; 68% wanted police to have more training on how to deal with confrontations; 79% wanted agencies outside the police force to investigate allegations of police wrongdoing; and 89% wanted police to wear body cameras. 

The survey showed that 39% of African Americans reported knowing someone who had been physically mistreated by police, and that figure was much higher than for European Americans (18%) and Hispanics (27%).  

Another study discussed by the Council on Criminal Justice in 2020 found that 91% of Black American adults believe that police treat black people less fairly than white people. Most Americans want to hold police more accountable, and want a federal database to track law enforcement personnel accused of misconduct. Most people also want police to live in the communities where they work. About nine out of ten Democratic Party voters wanted major changes in policing, whereas only about 14% of Republican voters wanted such changes. 

A Gallup Poll asking how much confidence people have in the police shows Americans have never had particularly strong confidence: the highest ever recorded between 1993 and 2024 was about 64% (in 2004), and the lowest ever measured was about 44% (in 2023).  The rate of confidence in 2024 was 51%, which is historically low, about the same as it was in 1993, 2014, and 2021, and higher than only three of the lowest confidence years (which were 2020, 2022, and 2023). 

Low confidence in the police relates to a low level of confidence Americans feel for all their major public institutions. Americans have the most confidence in small business (68% with “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence) and the military (61% with confidence). The police came in third with about 51% having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in them.  Higher education and the medical system are the fourth place institutions with only 36% of Americans having much confidence in those, and from there, it goes down. Americans have the least confidence in big business (16%), television news (12%), and Congress (9%). The criminal justice system, at 21%, is an institution Americans don’t trust much either.

A Pew Trust poll (Pew is among the best sources for polling and surveys) showed that in December of 2018 about 30% of Americans had “a great deal of confidence” in police to “act in the best interests of the public”, but by December of 2021 that had fallen to 20% who had such Pollyannaish opinions.