Attitudes toward Police and Police Spending

Abstract The Black Lives Matter movement focused scholarly and public attention on the politics of policing, but little is known about long-term trends in public opinion toward the police. I analyze three time series of attitudes toward police and police spending dating back as far as the 1960s: Gallup’s confidence in police question, the American National Election Studies’ feeling thermometer toward police, and the General Social Survey’s support for law enforcement spending question. The general public has become less positive toward police, and racial and partisan gaps have increased, in all three series. Partisan gaps are generally larger than racial gaps, and differences between white and Black Democrats have evolved in important ways. Divides on confidence and affect are more longstanding than divides on support for spending.