Schaefer Center: Survey Finds Most Marylanders Believe Police Treat Minorities Differently
November 18, 2015
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
A new survey by the University of Baltimore's Schaefer Center for Public Policy finds that a large majority of Marylanders believe that police are doing a good job of fighting crime in their locale. But for many, this support is tempered by an impression that officers are not treating blacks and other minorities the same as whites. In Baltimore City, survey respondents were more likely to say that either they or a family member had been treated unfairly by a police officer in the past year.
The latest Maryland Policy Choices Survey—a telephone-based public opinion poll conducted by the Schaefer Center on a wide range of topics of interest to policymakers and the general public—analyzes questions asked of 804 adult Marylanders residing in one of the state's 23 counties or in Baltimore City about policing, and focuses on the differences between the opinions and perceptions of respondents from Baltimore City, the Baltimore metropolitan area, and the rest of Maryland. The policing questions include satisfaction with police, observations of police activity, and perceptions of police treatment of minorities, unfair treatment by police, use of force, and police discipline. The survey was conducted between Sept. 1 and Oct. 19.
Overall results find that:
- most respondents (88 percent) believe that police are doing either a very good job or a somewhat good job fighting crime in their neighborhoods;
- respondents from Baltimore City were more likely to report seeing police activity in their neighborhoods compared to the Baltimore metropolitan area or the rest of Maryland;
- across Maryland, most respondents (53 percent) believe that, in general, police do not treat blacks and other minorities the same as whites;
- respondents from Baltimore City were more likely to say that either they or a family member had been treated unfairly by a police officer in the past 12 months.
Overall, 76 percent of respondents from Baltimore City, 89 percent of respondents from the Baltimore metropolitan area, and 93 percent of respondents from the rest of Maryland believe that the police are doing at least a somewhat good job fighting crime in their neighborhoods. Residents from Baltimore City have both the lowest percentage of respondents reporting a very good job (28 percent) and the highest percentage of respondents reporting a very bad job (11 percent).
Respondents were asked how police officers treat blacks and other minorities compared to whites by asking how much they agreed or disagreed with this statement: "[P]olice officers generally treat blacks and other minorities the same as whites." Most commonly, respondents disagreed with this statement. Overall, 72 percent of Baltimore City respondents answered either "disagree" or "strongly disagree," compared to 48 percent of respondents who live outside of the city.
Respondents in Baltimore also were most likely to offer an opinion on the question; only 10 percent of these respondents answered that they "don't know" or "couldn't say." These two responses to the question about treatment of racial minorities were received twice as often for survey participants who live outside of Baltimore City.
Questions about the police's use of force also showed differences between city residents and those from other parts of Maryland.
Among respondents from Baltimore City, 47 percent said that police use more physical force than necessary when dealing with community members, compared to 25 percent of respondents who live outside the city. However, when the phrase "community members" is replaced with "racial or ethnic minorities," both respondents from Baltimore City and those from elsewhere were more likely to agree that police use more physical force than necessary. In Baltimore City, 63 percent of respondents believe that police use more physical force than necessary when dealing with racial or ethnic minorities. Outside of Baltimore City, 40 percent of respondents said police use more physical force than necessary when dealing with racial or ethnic minorities. Together, asking about "racial and ethnic minorities" increased both geographic distinctions by about 15 percentage points.
The Maryland Policy Choices Survey also asked respondents whether they tend to agree or disagree that police officers usually receive no punishment when they do something wrong. As with other questions, the percentage of respondents who either strongly agreed or agreed was higher among respondents from Baltimore City. In the city, 59 percent of respondents agreed that officers usually receive no punishment, compared to 39 percent of respondents from outside the city.
The full Maryland Policy Choices Survey on police effectiveness is available here.
Learn more about the Schaefer Center for Public Policy and its home in UB's College of Public Affairs.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.