In the wake of the police brutality protests that have taken hold across the United States, a new study done by the Pew Research Center found that around two thirds of Americans feel that citizens need to have the ability to sue the police officers in order to hold them accountable in cases of misconduct and excessive use of force.
Pew researchers conducted a survey in June among 4,708 adults on the American Trends Panel, the Center’s principal source of data for US public opinion research. Five topics on police reform were covered in the survey, which included civilian oversight to investigate and discipline officers accused of inappropriate use of force or misconduct; making strongholds or chokeholds a crime; requiring officers to live in the place that they serve; creating a federal database to track officers use of misconduct and requiring police to be trained in nonviolent alternatives to deadly force.
They found that while two thirds (66%) of Americans support an opportunity to hold police legally accountable for their actions, 32% of US adults say that in order for police to do their jobs effectively, they need to be shielded from such lawsuits.
Although two thirds can be considered a large majority, percentages from different demographic groups surveyed still varied.
About eight in ten black people (86%) favor permitting suing citizens to sue the police for misconduct, as do three quarters (75% exactly) of the Hispanic population compared to 60% of white people, a pattern that remains similar on other survey topics.
However perhaps the most acute difference is the disagreement between bipartisan political affiliates. A majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (84%) say citizens need the power to sue police officers for the use of excessive force and misconduct, compared with 45% of Republicans and Republican leaners.
Moreover, just 10% of Democrats say police around the country do an excellent or good job in treating racial and ethnic groups equally, down from 27% in 2016, the last time the center held a similar study on the matter. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans (64%) have a positive view of how police around the country do in treating racial and ethnic groups equally, which is a modest decline from four years ago (71%).
Yet, despite the overall Democratic view on the matter, there still remains a large divide between black and white people within the particular political affiliation. For example, three-quarters of black Democrats say that police are doing a poor job of using the right amount of force for each situation, compared with 46% of white Democrats who say this.
Hispanic Democrats are more positive in their evaluations of police performance in these domains than both white and black Democrats; still, majorities rate police performance in these areas as only fair or poor.
The age of the surveyed adult also had an impact in the survey. One example includes the view on another topic covered in the survey: reducing police spending. Among both black and white adults, those under age 50 are far more likely to support decreased funding for police in their areas than are those 50 and older.
Furthermore, age had a say in the partisan support in the survey that covered the civilian's right to sue police for misconduct. In the Republican Party, 61% of Republicans ages 18 to 29 say civilians need to have the power to sue police officers in order to hold them accountable, compared with about half of those 30 to 64 (47%) and just 31% of those 65 and older.
The same pattern holds true for the comparison between the age differences in older and younger Democrats: 87% of Democrats ages 18 to 29 say civilians need the power to sue the police, while slightly fewer Democrats aged 65 and older say the same (79%).
However, an area in which a majority of Americans (90%) agreed was need for the government to create a database to track officers accused of misconduct.
Similarly, another area where an agreement was found in the survey was the overwhelming bipartisan support to require police to be trained in nonviolent alternatives to deadly force. Large majorities of Republicans (91%) and Democrats (94%) were in favor of the reform.
An area in which American adults felt that there was no need for change was public spending on police; only 25% of Americans say spending on policing should be decreased in their area.