{"id":11882,"date":"2017-09-15T10:33:51","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T15:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/deep-racial-partisan-divisions-in-americans-views-of-police-officers\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:16:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:16:16","slug":"deep-racial-partisan-divisions-in-americans-views-of-police-officers","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2017\/09\/15\/deep-racial-partisan-divisions-in-americans-views-of-police-officers\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep racial, partisan divisions in Americans\u2019 views of police officers"},"content":{"rendered":"

While a large majority of Americans rate police officers positively on a 0-to-100 \u201cfeeling thermometer,\u201d whites and blacks differ widely in their views, including among Democrats, according to a Pew Research Center survey<\/a> conducted in August.<\/p>\n\n

About two-thirds of the public (64%) give officers a warm rating on the scale (between 51 and 100), including 45% who rate them very warmly (76-100). Fewer give a neutral rating of 50 (16%), and just 18% give a cold rating on the scale (0-49).<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

But while a clear majority of whites give law enforcement warm ratings (74%), black and Hispanic views of police are more mixed.<\/p>\n\n

Just three-in-ten black Americans (30%) express warm attitudes about police officers, while 28% offer a neutral rating. Another 38% give a cold rating, including 30% who give a very cold rating (24 or lower on the 0-100 scale).<\/p>\n\n

Among Hispanics, 55% give police officers a warm rating, 25% give law enforcement a neutral rating and 17% have cold views.<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

These racial and ethnic differences in views of police officers are consistent with previous Pew Research Center findings<\/a> that blacks are less likely than whites to express confidence in the police in their communities.<\/p>\n\n

Views of police officers also differ substantially across age groups. About half (48%) of adults younger than 30 give a warm rating to law enforcement, 22% are neutral and another 29% are cold in their assessments. By comparison, 80% of adults ages 65 and older rate police officers warmly, including 61% who have very warm views.<\/p>\n\n

Notably, while greater racial and ethnic diversity among younger adults accounts for some of the age differences in these views, there are significant age differences within<\/em> racial and ethnic groups. For instance, 28% of whites younger than 30 give cold ratings to officers, compared with just 6% of whites 65 and older. And while just 27% of blacks ages 50 and older offer a cold rating for police officers, that rises to 46% among blacks younger than 50.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Police officers are also viewed more positively by Republicans than Democrats. Among Republicans, 86% give officers a warm rating, including 74% who rate officers very warmly. Among Democrats, 57% give officers a warm rating on the scale (including just 33% who rate officers very warmly), while 21% offer a neutral rating and 19% offer a cold rating.<\/p>\n\n

Conservative and moderate Democrats (58%) and liberal Democrats (56%) are about equally likely to rate officers warmly, but liberal Democrats are less likely to offer a very <\/em>warm rating.<\/p>\n\n

As in the public overall, older Democrats express warmer views of police officers than younger Democrats do. While 70% of Democrats ages 65 and older have a warm view, that compares with fewer than half (46%) of those younger than 30.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

Three-in-ten Democrats ages 18 to 29 give officers a cold rating.<\/p>\n\n

There is also a substantial racial and ethnic divide in views of police officers among Democrats. While just 32% of black Democrats offer a warm rating of officers, that rises to 52% among Hispanic Democrats and 71% among white Democrats.<\/p>\n\n

Although white Democrats have more positive views of the police than black and Hispanic Democrats, a substantial partisan divide remains among whites: 71% of white Democrats have a warm view of police officers, compared with 87% of white Republicans. This gap is even more pronounced in the shares who rate officers very warmly (41% vs. 76%).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While a large majority of Americans rate police officers positively on a 0-to-100 \u201cfeeling thermometer,\u201d whites and blacks differ widely in their views.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":306,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"apple_news_api_pending":"1713063663","relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[],"bylines":[805],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[520],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-11882","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-hannah-fingerhut","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-politics"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":512,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2017\/09\/15\/deep-racial-partisan-divisions-in-americans-views-of-police-officers\/","art_direction":{"A1":{"id":22690,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png?w=420&h=317&crop=1","width":420,"height":317,"chartArt":false},"A2":{"id":22690,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"A3":{"id":22690,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png?w=194&h=110&crop=1","width":194,"height":110,"chartArt":false},"A4":{"id":22690,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"XL":{"id":22690,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png?w=420&h=405&crop=1","width":420,"height":405,"chartArt":false},"social":{"id":22690,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/09\/FT_17.09.14_policeVews_blacks_hispanics.png?w=420&h=452&crop=1","width":420,"height":452,"chartArt":false}},"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Whites, Republicans more likely to view police \u2018warmly\u2019","description":"While a large majority of Americans rate police officers positively on a 0-to-100 \u201cfeeling thermometer,\u201d there are considerable racial and partisan divides.","og_title":"Deep racial, partisan divisions in Americans\u2019 views of police officers","og_description":"While a large majority of Americans rate police officers positively on a 0-to-100 \u201cfeeling thermometer,\u201d whites and blacks differ widely in their views.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":22690,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"1bf4d8c6a3a28283956a80ad60d42462","termId":805}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/11882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/306"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/11882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102440,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/11882\/revisions\/102440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=11882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}