Terry Jones writes for Issues and Insights about an interesting new poll involving law enforcement.
With violent crime unchecked in major American cities, President Donald Trump has moved to lower thefts, assaults and murders by providing federal help to besieged local police. How do Americans feel about this? They mostly favor local control, but don’t entirely reject federal involvement in local policing, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.
September’s national online I&I/TIPP Poll asked 1,362 adults: “President Trump has moved to take control of the Washington, D.C., police. Do you mostly favor or mostly oppose the federal government running local police departments?”
Overall, among those responding, 36% say they “mostly favor” the idea, while 49% say they “mostly oppose” it, and another 15% say they’re not sure. The poll, taken from Aug. 27-29, has a margin of error of +/-2.9 percentage points.
So a plurality of Americans oppose federal control of local police by a spread of 13 percentage points, a significant margin.
But something happens when you look closer at the data.
For one, partisan political affiliation again plays a major role in the responses.
Democrats, for example, strongly dislike the idea of federalizing local cops by 74% (mostly oppose) to just 16% (mostly favor), with independents not too far behind at 55% oppose, versus 26% favor.
Republicans flip that, with 23% mostly opposing and a sizeable 63% mostly favoring it.
So Red America and Blue America have very different visions of governance when it comes to local crime.
But one other interesting difference emerges between city dwellers, suburbanites, and rural inhabitants.
Those who live in cities, where most serious crime in America takes place, are more likely to favor federal involvement (41%) than either suburban Americans (32%) or rural Americans (36%). For the same groups, opposition is 46% for urban dwellers, 55% for suburbanites, and 44% for those who live in the country.
