Do Community Views of Local Police Agencies Change During “Crises of Legitimacy”? Results of a Multi-wave Random Sample Community Survey in a Large Suburban Jurisdiction

Abstract

George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis Police Department officer on May 25, 2020, was arguably one of the most impactful events in modern policing in the United States. However, several controversial and highly publicized use-of-force events preceded it during the 2010s, leading to this entire period being labeled a “crisis of legitimacy” or “reckoning” for the police. Nationally, perceptions of the police declined during this period, especially after Floyd’s death, prompting a great deal of debate, protest, and discussion about police reform (including arguments about defunding the police). However, a great deal of variation exists in these perceptions at the local level. This study presents a rare insight into this issue, pooling two random-sample household mail surveys that researchers collected in 2015 and 2021 in a large urban-suburban county. It seeks to determine whether changes in specific measures of perceived police legitimacy and effectiveness found in national-level polls were also found in this jurisdiction, and more specifically, across different racial groups. Although this racially and ethnically diverse county is also a progressive Democratic stronghold, the results suggest that local views about police—even when disaggregated by race—may not align with national perspectives or events as expected, which, in turn, may impact support for police reforms at the local and national levels.