20 percent Black Americans said they would like more police presence in their area and 61 percent prefer police presence to remain the same.
Amid massive Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality across the U.S., a recent Gallup poll showed a significant majority of Black Americans would prefer having the same, if not more police presence in their localities. Gallup collected the data online between June 23 and July 6 from a representative sample of over 30,000 respondents sorted into four categories - Black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. While 61 percent of Black Americans want the police presence to remain the same, 20 percent said they would like the police to spend more time in their area, and 19 percent said they want cops spending lesser time. Although the numbers indicate affinity towards police presence, Black Americans have an unfavorable perception of how their local police might treat them if they were to interact. Sixty percent of Blacks know some or many people treated unfairly by the police. Fewer than one in five Black Americans feel very confident that the police in their area would treat them with courtesy and respect, according to the poll. When factoring in those who are at least somewhat confident that the police would treat them well, over 60 percent Black Americans are generally confident, but this is still below the 85 percent seen nationally, including 91 percent of White Americans.
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