Poll: Vast Majority of Americans Oppose 'Defund the Police' Movement
Nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose the “defund the police” movement.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday shows that 64 percent of Americans oppose the movement, while 34 percent of respondents said they supported the idea.
Of those polled, 60 percent said they specifically oppose reallocating police budget funds to social and/or public health programs.
Reallocating partial funding for police departments to other programs was supported by 39 percent of respondents.
The concept of defunding or disbanding police departments has been proposed by some Democrats and far-left activists in the wake of protests and building anti-police sentiment following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.
The ABC News/Ipsos poll noted that respondents who opposed defunding police agencies were more likely to to white, while black and Hispanic Americans were more likely to favor such a move.
The poll noted that 57 percent of black respondents said they support the “defund the police” movement, and 64 percent of black Americans polled said they would agree with reallocating some police funds to community programs.
Meanwhile, 57 percent of Hispanics polled said they are against the “defund the police” movement, and 58 percent of Hispanics said they oppose moving money allocated for law enforcement elsewhere.
The poll found that almost three quarters of white Americans oppose the “defund the police” movement, and two-thirds of white Americans are against budget reallocation.
ABC News reported that the issue is also viewed differently by Republicans and Democrats, with Democrats being more likely to favor cutting funding for police agencies.
“But Democrats are more divided in their support than Republicans and Independents are in their opposition, with 43% and 41% of Democrats opposing both defunding the police, and using the money for other purposes, respectively,” ABC reported.
“Republicans, on the other hand, almost uniformly disapprove of defunding the police (89%) and redistributing money (86%). Independents largely fall along similar lines as Americans, with 67% opposing defunding the police and 59% being against stripping funding from police departments to boost community-based support programs,” the report added.
The poll essentially found that while the movement to defund police agencies has picked up steam and is a hot topic in the media and online, the idea is not viewed favorably by most Americans.
The results of the poll, conducted June 10-11, were based on responses from 686 American adults, with a margin of sampling error of plus- or minus-4.2 percentage points.
Nationwide calls to defund police departments began after the May 25 death of Floyd following an encounter with four Minneapolis police officers who were trying to arrest him.
One of those officers, Derek Chauvin, was filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes.
The video resulted in large-scale protesting and rioting, which spread from Minneapolis to major cities around the country.
A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council pledged this week to dismantle the city’s police department, but the council has not yet offered many specific details on what that defunding process would look like.
President Donald Trump has announced he stands against defunding police officers, and has attacked former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, over the concept.
“Sleepy Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats want to “DEFUND THE POLICE”. I want great and well paid LAW ENFORCEMENT. I want LAW & ORDER!” Trump tweeted Sunday.
Sleepy Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats want to “DEFUND THE POLICE”. I want great and well paid LAW ENFORCEMENT. I want LAW & ORDER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2020
Biden said the next day that he does not support outright the “defund the police” movement, though he did call for police reforms and for federal aid for local law enforcement agencies to be dispersed on a conditional basis.
“No, I don’t support defunding the police,” Biden told CBS News.
“I support conditioning federal aid to police, based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness.
“And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community.”
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